Manti Te'o Makes Up Dead Girlfriend

[Use of Time]

This is the most bizarre story I have ever heard. I've been a Deadspin reader and commenter for about 5 years. Every once in a while they wil buckle down and do a serious long form piece of journalism and absolutely hit it out of the park. If this is true they deserve a fucking Pullitzer. Te'o's comment holds no water as the timeline outlined by Deadspin has him on record as saying that they physically met at Stanford.

Also, you would think during the three month gravy train after Te'o's October 2nd interview he at some point would have mentioned, "oh by the way, I've never met this girl."

I would stay close to Deadspin, they broke the initial story and are most likely not done with their sources. It's going to be an absolute shit show when the other shoe drops.

[Kronos]

What a sick individual, and of course ND once again is shown to be one of the sleazier programs going.

[Roger Wilco]

Timby wrote:

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It's just spitballing at this point, but there is a working theory that Te'o went through this ridiculous process as an effort to cover up that he's gay, given that openly gay guys don't exactly mesh well with the hyper-masculine, testosterone-fueled zones that are football locker rooms (bypassing the obvious Catholic / gay joke here).

It's mere speculation, but the idea has legs because it's the only thing that makes sense (and is also sympathetic) without him being either A) a total moron or B) a complete sociopath who would instantly become the textbook example of "character issues" when evaluating draft prospects.

He's Mormon as well, which in this circumstance might be even "worse" than Catholic.

Very strange story all around though.

[SmoothieX]

I'm on the road for business, and am catching some Mike and Mike a couple time zones off this morning. What a bizarre story.

[Use of Time]

Good God Mike and Mike is unbearable this morning. It's like little Mike just discovered the term catfishing and is so proud of himself. I swear he's said it about 9,000 times now.

I can't wait for Cowherd to come on and have to credit Deadspin for the story. He's always shitting on bloggers like Deadspin like they are some sort of Tumblr account or something. It's going to really chap his ass to know they are behind the power curve on this one.

[Chaos Descending]

Former Arizona Cardinals player claims that Lennay Kekua was REAL and that he actually met her once.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/card...auia-says.html

[tighr]

Use of Time wrote:

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Te'o's comment holds no water as the timeline outlined by Deadspin has him on record as saying that they physically met at Stanford.

This is the part that is going to need to be explained. On the one hand, he never actually was quoted by Sports Illustrated as saying he had met her; that could have been an embelleshment/assumption by Sports Illustrated. For example, he says "I was contacted by her on twitter after the Stanford game, she saw me from the crowd", but SI writes "It was on a cold day in August outside the stadium that they met for the first time."

There's also the quotes from the father about meeting the girl in Hawaii.

In the end, it could all come down to embarrassment that he had never met his "girlfriend" in real life, something which unfortunately isn't uncommon in this day and age. Online dating is very huge. A successful football player might not want to give interviews proclaiming he's been engaged in a long term relationship with someone he'd never met. So he tells a fib.

The whole situation is bizarre, though, and was blown way out of proportion by the media who failed to fact check in the first place.

[Use of Time]

Now Deadspin has a post with comments from anonymous players that say they were extremely skeptical and that he was involved with girls on campus during his tenure. This is going to get nasty.

[Dorian Thompson]

I'm very interested to see how this is going to affect his future NFL career.

It won't affect it negatively at all if he can throw/catch a football. The NFL is full of drunk drivers, domestic batterers, dog killers, potential rapists, etc. If Te'o is skilled enough at his position, he'll get a generous offer. A few people will look sideways at him, but it won't matter if he can play.

[Use of Time]

Chaos Descending wrote:

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Former Arizona Cardinals player claims that Lennay Kekua was REAL and that he actually met her once.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/card...auia-says.html

Yeah, this is the cog in the story that is the biggest head scratcher. His timeline doesn't jive with Te'o's story.

[Sheep]

http://www.nma.tv/manti-teo-notre-da...axed-hoaxster/

Anyone else want to ditch CNN, Fox News and every other U.S. news agency for the Taiwan news animators? I do.

[tomalak301]

Maybe I'm just missing the point, but this feels like a total TNZ-ificiation of the entire news media. Everyone is blowing this whole thing out of proportion and I'm not sure why. I guess when it comes to Nortre Dame and soap opera drama, it has to be top billing.

[Pegaritaville]

Sheep wrote:

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http://www.nma.tv/manti-teo-notre-da...axed-hoaxster/

Anyone else want to ditch CNN, Fox News and every other U.S. news agency for the Taiwan news animators? I do.

Those animated news clips are the best. Never fail to crack me up.

[tighr]

tomalak301 wrote:

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Maybe I'm just missing the point, but this feels like a total TNZ-ificiation of the entire news media. Everyone is blowing this whole thing out of proportion and I'm not sure why. I guess when it comes to Nortre Dame and soap opera drama, it has to be top billing.

It's because the media is one of the ones who got trolled here, so they think this is super important big news, and want to now share it with us.

It's kind of like when a little kid tries to tell you about what someone did on the playground at school, and you just don't give a shit. But to them, its the most important thing in the world because they were there and it involved them.

[tighr]

Top comment on a recent Yahoo Sports article:

Aj Mcarron's GF will be featured in the SI Swimsuit issue. Manti T'eo's Gf will be featured on Mythbusters