Well, it looks like the smart move for Te'o would have been to come out early
Right, I get the exposure part but that assumes he was stupid enough to think he'd get away with it for long enough to get the payoff (NFL contract worth more).Her death got him to the Heisman ceremony. Te'o has had a fairly common season as far as linebackers go:
A: 113 tackles (55 solo), 5.5 TFL, 1.5 sacks, 7 INTs, 1 FR,
B: 130 tackles (55 solo), 15 TFL, 4 sacks, 1 INT, 1 FF
C: 191 tackles (102 solo), 12 TFL, 3 INTs, 1 TD
A is Te'o
B is Kevin Minter (LSU player, 2nd team All-American)
C is Luke Kuechly, 2011 Butkus Award winner (Boston College)
Playing for ND and having a sob story puts your name out there, meaning people watch you.
So Deadspin found this girl who is in all of the pictures.
That leads to two possibilities:
Someone stole her identity/pictures to create this hoax and Te'o was in it.
This girl was part of the hoax and did lie to Te'o.
I feel this is fact because you will not get me to believe that over a two-year period that Te'o NEVER Facetimed or Skyped once with this girl to see what she looked like, and still fell in love with her.
http://espn.go.com/college-football...ry-manti-teo-girlfriend-death-apparently-hoax
Te'o's statement:
"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her.
"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.
"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life.
"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.
"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was.
"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."
...So, do you believe him?
Te'o and Kekua meet after Stanford's 45-38 victory over Notre Dame in Palo Alto, according to the South Bend Tribune: "Their stares got pleasantly tangled, then Manti Te'o extended his hand to the stranger with a warm smile and soulful eyes." Kekua, a Stanford student, swaps phone numbers with Te'o.
you have to be a special kind of nuts to do all of that and to keep pretending you didn't when busted.
In-depth reporting? Looks like deadspin did what I would consider normal journalistic research. Every other reporter for the past 6 months should turn in their credentials, or whatever it is journalists have these days. Absolutely pathetic. Anyone with some drive and a week of spare time could have unearthed this. I mean, they didn't even cover their bases at Stanford. Are you kidding me?Wow, just wow. Looks like some in depth reporting was done to uncover this.
I think it's crazy that blogs have become in depth journalists more than the newspapers these days.
I wonder who didn't actually read the story.I wonder if his grandmother is still alive :hmm:
I wonder who didn't actually read the story.
Te'o and Tuiasosopo definitely know each other. In May 2012, Te'o was retweeting Tuiasosopo, who had mentioned going to Hawaii. Wrote Te'o, "sole""bro," in Samoan"u gotta come down." In June, Te'o wished Tuiasosopo a happy birthday. How they know each other isn't clear.
"Manti and Ronaiah are family," she said, "or at least family friends." She told us that the Tuiasosopos had been on-field guests (of Te'o or someone else, she didn't know) for the Nov. 24 Notre Dame-USC game in Los Angeles. USC was unable to confirm this, but a tweet from Tuiasosopo's since-deleted account suggests he and Te'o did see each other on that West Coast trip. "Great night with my bro @MTeo_5! #Heisman #574L," Ronaiah tweeted on Nov. 23, the night before the game.
And there was something else: Tuiasosopo had been in a car accident a month before Lennay's supposed accident.
Was this Lennay Kekua? We spoke with friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo who asserted that Ronaiah was the man behind Lennay. He created Lennay in 2008, one source said, and Te'o wasn't the first person to have an online "relationship" with her. One markwho had been "introduced" to Lennay by Tuiasosopolasted about a month before family members grew suspicious that Lennay could never be found on the telephone, and that wherever one expected Lennay to be, Ronaiah was there instead. Two sources discounted Ronaiah's stunt as a prank that only metastasized because of Te'o's rise to national celebrity this past season.
Isn't he on record saying he MET HER IN PERSON after a Stanford game? How does he explain that?
Either the Tribune lied or was lied to by Te'o or someone else gave them the info and it was fake? Cause according to this he met her in person first.
"How It Began: Kekua met Teo during her freshman year at Stanford, and within a year the two were steadily dating and vacationing together in Hawaii, where Teo was raised."
So was Dan Carson making that up?
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ua-before-the-biggest-game-of-manti-teos-life