It was back in November, before Notre Dame played Boston College, that I made my first-ever trip to South Bend, Ind., assigned to write about star linebacker Manti Te’o.
By that time, his story was well-known, featured in everything from the South Bend Tribune to Sports Illustrated. Te’o had lost his grandmother and his girlfriend within six hours of each other in September. He had played on, helped the Irish beat Michigan State, and made a moving tribute to the girl he said he loved.
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You'd better do some more reading. He did say he met her. It was a scam, played to the hilt and it worked for a while. I believe they had to have his fictitious girlfriend "die" because sooner or later (certainly by the time of the NFL draft) people would be pressing to see her. It has generally been my experience that those who profess so loudly to be holier than thou, are not.
So where did he send the flowers? Guess he was lying about that too. Does this mean I now have to get all my factual news from Deadspin??
I think what we need in sport is a Liars Hall of Fame. Some of the lies coming from pro athletes are far more impressive than what they do on the field.
Oh, how I wish that Amalie Benjamin was still the beat writer for the Red Sox. I've read the Globe sports page for half a century, and she was one of the best. (Sorry, have to give top billing to the immortal Peter Gammons when he had the job.) Current beat writer Nick "Big Daddy" Cafardo, in contrast, seems more interested in expressing his parental feelings and sensibilities about the players.
I have two intelligent male friends in their 40s who met women online and developed what I would term deep relationships with them via phone and online chats, only to then receive e-mail messages from a "friend" of the woman saying she had been killed in a car accident. In both cases, the men investigated and found no evidence of such a death having occurred. So it is not difficult for me to think that a naive college kid could be pulled in by someone with bad motives.
I can almost guarantee you that it will come out that Te'o is gay. He's the most popular player on the Notre Dame football team and he carries on an online relationship rather than date the endless amount of women on campus who would have been available to him? I think he carried on this "relationship" to deflect his sexual orientation. The players in his locker room supposedly knew that the girlfriend was a myth. He's preparing to go into his professional life in one of the most homophobic sports and was looking for a way to not have his orientation be part of the process. I can't imagine any other reason for what happened, unless he's incredibly socially awkward and too shy to date real women. If this is true I feel really bad for him.
Dumb story...OK folks, we have heard enough of this story. Can we just go forward.