During a morning where Chip Kelly’s flight from Oregon to Philadelphia departure grabbed everyone’s attention, Deadspin ran a Statue of Manti that took everyone’s breath away. Manti Te’o’s “girlfriend” who allegedly passed away within 24 hours of his grandmother was a hoax. Wait what?
And Twitter went wild.
As the details become more clear, we try to piece together what exactly happened through what we know, and who we believe. Deadspin suggests that Te’o may have been very involved in the hoax. As CSNChicago reports, Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick voluntarily addressed the rumors in a press conference, in which he defended the linebacker. Te’o, who graduated from Notre Dame in the December, is all but gone from the forward-thinking Swarbrick’s radar, and he chose to put his reputation on the line by speaking out for Te’o.. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that teammates are supporting Te’o, including roommate Zeke Motta. Te’o’s family reportedly learned of the hoax on December 26th.
Let’s look at this through the eyes of Manti.
People meet on the internet every day in this world, whether it be through dating websites, Facebook, or a common interest in a website. With Manti’s portrayed upstanding character and devout faith, he would seem to be an easy target for someone to pull a prank (or a PR stunt).
There was a Lennay Kekua, in the form of a character. She was real in every way: her picture, her voice, her emotional involvement with Te’o . . except she was fake. Ronaiah Tuiasosopo has admitted to creating the fictional Kekua. Manti may have “met” her in 2009. But it wasn’t at Stanford. It was online. MySpace, e-mail, who knows, but Manti had someone on the other end of the line who pretended to be this amazing woman. We don’t know much about Lennay, but since she was not real, she could paint any picture of herself to Manti that she wanted, and she enamored him. He wanted to meet her.
Manti certainly never met her. But, guys, let’s think of things this way: When you’re dad asks you the typical question regarding your status with the opposite sex, who in their right mind would tell their father that he met this amazing girl online that he’s never met?
So lies were created. But who created them?
His family supported him. Everything seemed to be going well for Manti; he was an outstanding student and starting linebacker at the University of Notre Dame. The media had already christened another golden boy. He even passed up NFL money to stay his senior year at Notre Dame. There was no reason to doubt him. So when his family commented on the girl, they may have been suspicious, but they stuck by Te’o. What reason did they have to not believe him? He’d look crazy if he had started a relationship with a girl in 2009, and in three years had never seen her. So he lied. Out of embarrassment? Out of firm belief? Out of blind hope? Somewhere along the way, he got way too entrenched in his own lie.
There was likely some real person pretending to be Lennay Kekua. The detailed descriptions of phone conversations and teammate’s support suggest it that that part of the story may be true. But Manti’s stardom drew more attention to him. People wanted to know more about him. His narrative was constructed. Can we fault the media for that? Yes and no. They were just doing their jobs, giving us what appeared to be a great narrative of overcoming grief and leading the team to the title game. They did, however, eat it all up. They caught wind of this sensational story and further sensationalized. Very few photos of Kekua exist, that should have been a red flag (then again, it didn’t stop Manti).
Once he discovered the truth in late December, Te’o was devastated. Imagine the shock, grief and disbelief Te’o felt upon discovering the news.
How does a Heisman runner-up tell his millions of fans, weeks before the BCS National Title Game against Alabama, that he was the victim of an elaborate hoax?
You don’t.
That’s none of your fan’s business. It’s a deeply, deeply personal tragedy that you’d like to keep to yourself and your closest friends and family. A situation as unbelievably embarrassing as this is something most of us would hope to bury 100 feet underground.
All that has been reported about when Te’o actually learned Kekua was a hoax, is that he “received a call from “Kekua’s Sister” on December 6th, saying Lennay was not dead and she wanted to rekindle the relationship. ”
Imagine that world of confusion Te’o was now just thrown into. The Heisman ceremony is in 2 days, and his mind was just completely criss-crossed by that phone call. He wasn’t even sure himself. And why would he let anything leak days before the Heisman ceremony? It would have completely confused everyone and ruined his chances?
During the Heisman ceremony, when Fowler brought up his girlfriend, what is he supposed to say? On live national television,
“Actually Chris, I received a call from my girlfriend’s sister saying she is alive now. I’m kind of confused about this whole situation. I don’t know what’s going on, I’m just happy to be here in New York and a candidate for this prestigious award.”
Te’o didn’t have an option. He needed time to grasp all of this, just like the rest of us. So when he finally came to terms with what happened, he developed a plan to tell the public in a manner that would be easiest to digest. Except Deadspin beat him to the punch.
So who’s at fault here?
The Media
For creating the gripping Te’o narrative.
For failing to diligently fact-check.
And though kudos goes to Deadspin for uncovering this hoax, things would have been a lot clearer if Te’o had been able to handle this situation instead of the media leaking the tale, and causing a nation-sweeping stir. Then again, would we have ever found out if Deadspin didn’t come out with it’s findings?
Jake Berent 