Yes, very true.  And no one less pleased than Ms. Winfrey.

Congrats Timothy!  I'm not going to sit here and play detective.  But, I have a feeling that it was a hoax and when he figured it out, then he was too embarrassed to come out with it and decided to play along with the story.  A stupid decision that he would not have made if he had known how good Ohio's journalism program is!

http://jezebel.com/5976718/notre-dame-says-manti-teo-is-a...

Nice job!  Congrats!

First, let me congratulate Tim Burke for an excellent investigative journalism piece!  He's done the Scripps School of Journalism up proud with this one.  As an alumnus of the J-school I'm personally very honored to have Tim as one of our number.

Second, I really have nothing to add that hasn't already been said by others in this long thread.  In general, I find myself siding more with BTC's posts than most of the others as I find it beyond credibility to believe that Manti T. didn't know that he was perpetuating a hoax.  At what point he knew the details of this hoax is up in the air, but that does not excuse his continual lying about and making up details.  I deem these to be more than "white lies."  There is a Shakespearean quote, which I'll do from memory, that comes to mind here: "Oh what a tortured web we weave when first we practice to deceive."  I think, if we are honest, we've all been there and done that in our personal lives at one time or another to one extent or another; however, after a while we usually catch ourselves and confess to the injured party that we weren't playing straight with him or her.   That realization should have come a lot quicker in this situation because Mr. T. (hmm) was not just deceiving a person or two about some trivial matter but a whole nation to the point that folks were praying about it in church, making donations in the name of the dead ("fake") woman, doing other things to show sympathy and concern.  Once he saw the initial reactions to his deception, he should have come clean.  He knew he never met her in person from the very beginning.  So, at the start he knew that at least part of this was a total hoax.  I just don't have a whole lot of sympathy for him.

There is one other possible explanation that comes to mind:  Perhaps, Mr. T. is actually "crazy" as in schizophrenic.  If that's the case, I do have sympathy for him and hope he gets the counseling and the meds that the needs.

How do you explain him never going to see her when she was in the supposed auto accident? How do you explain him never seeing her when she was going through leukemia treatments? I'm sorry, but when you have the feelings for somene that he claims he did, you want to be by their side no matter what. Like Robin Williams said in the movie Good Will Hunting: "the term visiting hours don't apply."  Especially to the people who truly love and care for a person who's struggling for life. Believe me, I've been there.
 
The fact that there are five different dates of her death doesn't help either. Which one was it? I think if you knew someone that special to you, you would remember the exact date. Once again, I've been there.

And the father is even more of a shadowy figure. He blacklisted a Hawaiian newspaper for showing a picture of Manti gettting bowled over by Eddie Lacy. You really think that guy doesn't want his son in the spotlight for the greater good? And why would he say they met in 2009, when there are reports they didn't meet until 2011? Why would he say she visted him in Hawaii, when it turns out she doesn't even exist? Is he going to claim being a victim of the scheme too?

Just use your common sense. Things just don't add up. Why isn't Manti coming out immediately and denying the whole thing? Where is he? If you were the victim of something of this magnitude wouldn't you want to tell people your side of the story? What's he hiding from? Embarassment? We're way past that point, aren't we?

The only reason Notre Dame made a statement is because they essentially had to. I didn't buy anything that Swarbrick said. Not one bit. He may have written his own pink slip by backing Manti 100%.

Go check the BYU message boards. See what they have to say about Manti and his family. Remember, he was thinking BYU before USC and Notre Dame because of his Mormon heritage. I heard a caller on ESPN Radio from Utah talk about some of his incidents there and it just makes this more believable that he was in on it.
 

I've heard the homosexual rumor also. Not really sure where that is even coming from. I can see why it would be a perfect cover up, but that's a little much for me to believe.

Things usually never add up with these things once everything is revealed. I've seen and read a ton of online relationship stories. It is crazy to just assume they are all just stupid, gullible idiots or making things up.

For your initial questions, a variety of reasons could easily be the answer. She downplayed the severity of it initially, while they were close they weren't that close at the time, he is a college student who can't fly out to California at a moment's notice, etc.

From what we know as facts, my guess is at some point Te'o was tired of simply talking on the phone and seeing pictures. To avoid a Skype call, "she" gave him a picture with her name in it to prove she was real. That bought the people behind the hoax time.

There are a lot of normal people with crazy dads. How his dad acts has nothing to do with him.

Sorry, but I don't really care what a school he turned down is saying on a message board. If they have anything of substance, other outlets will pick it up.

Te'o himself mentioned multiple death dates? It seems to me this was the media mixing things up, not him.

All I'm saying is that every single thing in this story can easily match up with a hoax he had no idea about. Once he did finally figure it out, he opted to try and put it behind him and finish the season. If he did nothing wrong, it would be unfair for him to have to come clean and answer these embarassing questions right before the BCS Championship game.

Just because you are claiming to have been there, you haven't. No one has been in his particular predicament. No need to try and play that card.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about this. It doesn't really matter until he comes out and says what he needs to say. Just a completely odd story all around.

Playing that card was innappropriate,but I was just trying to prove a point where someone who has been there is coming from. It puts a hole in his story.

Oh I know GoCats105, I'm not trying to say "I'm right, you're wrong." No one knows. I just don't like the way he is getting labeled this and that before anything is really known. I know things are not adding up, but at the same time, if I was in his predicament and I found out late in the season all this stuff happened, I have no clue what I'd do. When you think about it, I don't know how he could have possibly handled this. I'm of course assuming he was not in on the hoax, which I still personally believe to be the case.

Can you imagine the media frenzy before the game if this came out December 26th to the public? At least right now he can hide a bit.

After reading a few of his quotes, like this one:



My first thought was a personality disorder of some kind. No one could intentionally dramatize this stuff and create this level of detail without being pretty sick. Histrionic disorder perhaps? Any way...just keep in mind that the guy may have some issues.

Here's one more, clearly he's not telling the truth.

At this point I see four plausible explanations:
1. Manti was in on it, and did it for publicity
2. Manti was in on it, and did it to cover for being gay
3. Manti was the victim of a "catfish" scheme, and he and his family made a few "white lies" along the way, so that no one would ask how it was that he never actually met her in real life, and these are now coming back to haunt him
4. "Reba" was actually in on it. If Manti or his family thought they really met Kekua, they may have really met "Reba".

I have yet to see any "facts" that convince me that any one of these is the correct version, nor that any one of these is not possible. I expect it will collapse pretty quickly, and it won't be long before the truth is out. The one person that knows all the answers, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, has yet to speak, and the phone records will answer a lot of questions. The other person that knows the answers (if they exist) is the person that played the voice of Kekua, if there actually was one (explanations 1 and 2 don't require a such a person to exist).

One thing that may complicate this is that if no crime has been committed, there won't be an official police investigation, and that may limit how much information can be obtained.

Oh, and in another bizarre turn, it seems that R&B star "Miguel" has tweeted with Lennay Kekua back in 2011.