hoax
[hohks] Show IPA
noun
1.
something intended to deceive or defraud: The Piltdown man was a scientific hoax.
verb (used with object)
2.
to deceive by a hoax; hoodwink.
Synonyms
1. deception, fraud, fake, imposture, humbug.
1. deception, fraud, fake, imposture, humbug.
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
I am not Manti Te'o.
I mean that in every sense of the word, as far as having his heritage, his youth, his skill, his physique or his faith. In most (if not, all) instances, I am the antithesis of Manti Te'o.
Which means that the perspective I am writing from is going to be from an outsider's place. So keep that in mind as we wander through the minefield that his life must surely feel like right now.
I cannot imagine the emotions that have to be running through him right now, and I think it depends on what role he played in the farce that his life has been over the course of the last day (and month, if you want to go back that far).
Deadspin reported on Wednesday that Te'o's girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, who supposedly died on (or about) September 12 was not, actually, dead.
In fact, to be fair, there is a chance that she never existed.
[T]here is no SSA record there of the death of Lennay Marie Kekua, that day or any other. Her passing, recounted so many times in the national media, produces no obituary or funeral announcement in Nexis, and no mention in the Stanford student newspaper.
Nor is there any report of a severe auto accident involving a Lennay Kekua. Background checks turn up nothing. The Stanford registrar's office has no record that a Lennay Kekua ever enrolled. There is no record of her birth in the news. Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there's no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed.
The photographs identified as Kekua—in online tributes and on TV news reports—are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua. She is not a Stanford graduate; she has not been in a severe car accident; and she does not have leukemia. And she has never met Manti Te'o.
Whatever the case, we are facing one of the weirdest stories we've seen in sports in quite some time.
Let's flash back, briefly, to the start of the narrative. On September 12, it is reported that Manti Te'o grandmother and girlfriend both passed away. On September 15, Te'o plays an inspired game against the Michigan State Spartans, finishing the game with 12 tackles (one for loss) and two passes broken up in a 20-3 victory.
Post game, Te'o thanks his family and his girlfriend's family for their support, and he felt that his girlfriend and his grandmother were there:
Consider this the start of the hype train, and that train just kept on rolling down the track. In fact, the train rolled all the way to New York, as Te'o wound up finishing second in the Heisman Trophy race.
Maybe he was inspired by what occurred, losing his girlfriend and his grandmother so close together. Maybe playing for people he loved shifted him into another gear and inspired him to play some of the best ball of his life.
Maybe...just maybe...it was not a coincidence that the worst game he played all season was the first game he played after he (allegedly) found out that his dead girlfriend was not, um, dead and not, um, real.
According to Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, who held a press conference on Wednesday evening to address the controversy, Te'o first found out that something was not on the up and up:
On the morning of December 26th, very early morning, Manti called his coaches to inform them that, while he was in attendance at the ESPN awards show in Orlando, he received a telephone call from a number he recognized as having been associated with Lennay Kekua. When he answered it, it was a person whose voice sounded like the same voice he had talked to, who told him that she was, in fact, not dead.
I [Swarbrick] arranged to meet Manti upon his return to campus and did so on the afternoon of the 27th.
I met with Manti for about and hour and 45 minutes and asked him to review every detail of the relationship as he knew it with this woman. Manti did so, was forthright, answered every question, and was eager to share information with me.
(Full transcript of Swarbrick's comments can be found at this link.) The ESPN awards show, which is around the time Manti received the text, was December 6.
Now, there are definitely questions that come out of the press conference that Swarbrick had, because according to Swarbrick, Manti Te'o claims that the relationship was exclusively online:
Q: There were some reports earlier in the year when this was going on that Manti and Kekua had met and spent time together in Hawaii. Did he explain how those came to be?
JACK SWARBRICK: He did, and again, I'm going to let Manti tell the story because he deserves that right. What I will tell you, this was an exclusively online relationship.
That's a problem, right? Especially when this was written in a South Bend Tribune article (now pulled from the South Bend Tribune's website) on October 12 slugged, "What Dreams May Come: Te'o's, ND's destiny come full circle" by Eric Hansen (archived on Irish Sports Report-emphasis mine):
It never felt like a chance meeting, although it probably appeared that way from the outside looking in.
Their stares got pleasantly tangled, then Manti Te'o extended his hand to the stranger with a warm smile and soulful eyes.
They could have just as easily brushed past each other and into separate sunsets. Te'o had plenty to preoccupy himself that November weekend in Palo Alto, Calif., back in 2009...
(snip)
And Manti Te'o is convinced the beautiful stranger will be watching too Saturday, somehow.
Lennay Kekua was a Stanford student and Cardinal football fan when the two exchanged glances, handshakes and phone numbers that fateful weekend three seasons ago.
She was gifted in music, multi-lingual, had dreams grounded in reality and the talent to catch up to them.
The plan was for Kekua to spend extensive time with the whole Te'o family when upwards of 40 of them came to South Bend in mid-November for ND's Senior Day date with Wake Forest.
"They started out as just friends," Brian Te'o said. "Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple...."
That was a direct quote in the article from Brian Te'o, Manti's father. According to Eric Hansen, the author, the interview was taped.
Now, as the story evolved over the course of the day, it turns out that there may be truth in the claim that this hoax was committed not with Manti's involvement, as many thought, but instead at his expense.
The Deadspin article that was linked above, along with some investigative work done by Justin Meaghan, and additional reporting collated by SB Nation, point to any number of individuals who either were involved in the hoax or had knowledge that the con was being perpetrated. A Twitter trail or three were followed, and the various threads can be connected to point out that this was a three-year long game that was played out, utilizing various Twitter and other social media tools and accounts.
One of the alleged perpetrators of the hoax is Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a family known for cranking out football players.
As of this writing, this is what we have as far as commentary goes from Manti Te'o himself. It was released Wednesday afternoon:
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."
He is in Florida in training for the upcoming NFL draft in April. According to Jack Swarbrick, Te'o completed his coursework for his degree in December.
* * *
Spencer Hall, the primary writer of Every Day Should Be Saturday and also a writer for SB Nation, compiled a list of folks who never checked to see if Manti Te'o's girlfriend ever existed. It consists of, well, everybody, with "You (Jack Dickey and Timothy Burke excepted)" coming in at number two behind SB Nation.
There may be some truth to that, and I know that the first reaction I had was, "Wait. How did no one catch that this girl did not exist?"
But the more time I took to reflect on it, there is no natural reason to assume that someone who is a senior in college, a potential first-round draft pick who really did lose his grandmother, would have a fictional girlfriend? It's not a leap that anyone can make without coming off as unbalanced at best.
It's clear that there was a hoax here; no one is denying that it occurred. To what extent Manti Te'o is involved is unclear, however. There are definite inconsistencies that preclude me from completely exonerating him at this time, so I can't say that he is blameless. If he is involved, then he would have managed to pull the wool over the eyes of a heullva lot of people and would, one thinks, have damaged his credibility and hurt his chances of making the NFL.
Which is why I tend to lean towards the side of his being a victim. What I struggle with, though, if he is just an innocent victim, is the lack of a clear motive.
I don't know of any cons that go on for three years that don't have some kind of extortion attempt or other nefarious purpose as the conclusion. Now, maybe a severely damaged individual or individuals are responsible for this, and that this whole thing was for nothing more than shits and giggles. If that be the case, I would be even more scared and fearful for Manti Te'o, because one has to have an incredibly high level of sociopathy to commit such a heinous act.
Also, if he is a victim, Te'o may be hurt as well, by the perception that he is nothing but a naif for being led to believe that this woman was real.
However, it won't only be his public and professional perceptions that will be hurt.
He must be hurt as well. It's one thing to be the butt of jokes of your friends and teammates.
It's another to be made into a national laughingstock and to be trending on Twitter along with the term "Catfish." Especially if he is truly as sensitive and caring a soul as he has been portrayed to be.
Maybe he was duped. Maybe he was a naif. Maybe he had never been in a serious relationship. Being deeply devout and religious, perhaps it truly was possible for him to fall in love with a figment, an ideal—maybe it was possible to be that much of a romantic and fall in love with someone who lived over 2,000 miles away with only her words and the sound of her voice to calm him and reassure him.
It's easy to be cynical and say, "He never heard of Skype?" True. That is a good question. Other ones that come to mind that should be addressed at some point include:
- If she was in a bad car accident, how could you not go visit her?
- Or not go visit her in the hospital when she found out she had leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant?
- You only sent flowers for her funeral? I know it was alleged that she informed you that she didn't want you to come to the funeral and miss a game, but still, I think you go. Or at the very least, visit the grave after she was buried?
Yes, we all do mourn differently, that is true; perhaps that was not at the front of his mind as he was completing his last semester and trying to compete for a BCS title. And the romantic in me wants to believe that he is innocent in this matter and let his heart get the best of him. That he lacked the experience with relationships to determine what was right or wrong.
But this story is such a rat's nest of suspicion, shady characters, media hype and social networking shadow games that it is hard to determine who is telling the truth and who is being lied to.
The holes in the story are big, and until we hear from Manti Te'o itself, and hope that the right questions are asked, will we approach anything near a satisfying conclusion.
The truth will come out. It will just be interesting to see what that truth is.
Stay tuned.
(Now, there are some individuals out there who have, or who will, claim that he had to be in on the hoax for either a) personal gain—like, say, winning a Heisman or b) to protect a secret about himself. I believe one such writer has made such a claim, but I won't link to him, in part because I find him to be distasteful. Just Google "Te'o" "gay" and "outkick" and see what pops up.)
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