On Manti Te'o

(NOTE:  As I allude to in this post below, facts continue to come out.  Shortly after I completed the post below, I read the story of the Tuiaososopo kid in California now admitting to perpetuating the Girlfriend Hoax on Manti Te'o.)


So, I suppose that it is obligatory that I weigh in on the whole Manti Te'o Affair.  Actually, stuff keeps coming out on this at such a rapid pace, that I am already way behind the curve, and God only knows what else will surface by the time I finish typing this.

My initial thought on this was that at best, Te'o was unbelievably naive, foolish, and, perhaps, downright stupid to fall for what probably started as a practical joke, and a rather distatseful one at that, that just grew like Topsy until it spun completely out of control.  That's AT BEST.  At worst, he is a scheming, manipulative liar who perpetuated a falsehood to enhance his own legend by creating a persona for himself that puts the "Win One for the Gipper" legend to shame.

Let's say we give him the complete benefit of the doubt and assume the former.  Yeah, he may be a big football star on the largest stage of his sport, but he's STILL a 21 year old kid, and do you really know what YOU would have done when YOU were 21 years old and a beautiful young girl and the possibility of sex was staring you in the face?  Even then, one fact troubled me, and that was Te'o's claim, supported by his father, that he and the young lady "met" in Palo Alto after a Notre Dame - Stanford game a few years ago.

Notre Dame, in the person of AD Jack Swarbrick came out in full support of Te'o, saying that he was 100% the victim of a cruel hoax.  I agree with The Fan's Ron Cook when he stated on the air yesterday that while it is good that the school gives its full support to its student, Te'o, they may be sorry that they didn't leave themselves some "wiggle room" in the event that details come out as the story develops that maybe, perhaps, Te'o wasn't a 100% victim here.  Such a concern may be prophetic in light of facts today stating how Te'o continued to perpetuate the story on at least two occasions after the hoax was revealed to him on December 6.  That doesn't make the kid look good.

In the meantime, I would recommend a couple of columns by writers far more talented than I.  One from the Post-Gazette's Tony Norman:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/tony-norman/upon-review-teo-hoax-case-a-puzzle-670893/

And two from Yahoo Sports' Pat Forde:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax-notre-dame-jack-swarbrick-sincere-045713273.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--sources--manti-te-o-s-representatives-passed-on-chance-to-release-story-about-fictional-girlfriend-175521027.html

In the meantime, the jokes that this story has given birth to on the Internet, especially Facebook, have come in great volume and unbelievable rapidity.  It has gotten to the point that you can already start to look upon it as piling on and almost cruel, if you want to give Te'o the full benefit of the doubt.  Still, a lot of this stuff is funny.

Will be interesting to see what all of this is going to cost Te'o once the NFL Draft rolls around.