Manti Te'o...... OOPS!

[Buckwheat]

I just really don't know. It sounds like this Ronaiah Tuiasosopo guy was behind it. Yet, him and Manti Teo were together before he played in the USC game.

Just.... I don't even....

[KniCks4LiFe]

I just really don't know. It sounds like this Ronaiah Tuiasosopo guy was behind it. Yet, him and Manti Teo were together before he played in the USC game.

Just.... I don't even....

ok now you lost me.

[Buckwheat]

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's father played for USC.

His cousin played for Lane Kiffin in Oakland.

Lane Kiffin now coaches at USC....

[thechom80]

So, Manti and Ronaiah are lovers and they conspired this elaborate hoax to cover it up? lol

[Buckwheat]

Anything is possible at this point.

[BlackWidow]

I can't wait til the truth comes out hahahaha

[Pinstripe power]

the worst part was after finding out this news, they also got some other troubling news. They found out alabama scored again.



seriosuly though, this is whats wrong with college football. why does this matter? why did it matter when she "died". why does the private lives of the players that have nothing to do with football become top storied and breaking news? and anyone saying its for a heisman push is crazy. this story came out week 3 when ND was still unranked and an under dog to migh. state that weekend

[natepro]

the worst part was after finding out this news, they also got some other troubling news. They found out alabama scored again.



seriosuly though, this is whats wrong with college football. why does this matter? why did it matter when she "died". why does the private lives of the players that have nothing to do with football become top storied and breaking news? and anyone saying its for a heisman push is crazy. this story came out week 3 when ND was still unranked and an under dog to migh. state that weekend

People like human interest stories. We always have, whether it's college sports or professional athletes or actors or musicians or politicians. A guy on TV had a crazy and tragic thing happen to him, it's going to be reported.

You tell me: Would you rather hear a story about a guy that loves his dying girlfriend, or another story about someone beating the hell out of a kid?

[ManRamForPrez24]

This shares what I've been thinking and saying better and more succinctly than anything else I've found. Mainly the last paragraph.

Not sure if it's been shared...

http://www.thenation.com/blog/172268/crying-manti-teo#

Crying for Manti Te'o
Dave Zirin on January 16, 2013 - 11:23 PM ET
Two years ago, I called the Notre Dame football program a moral cesspool. Two weeks ago, I wrote a story about the horrible treatment of women who have accused members of the Notre Dame football team of sexual assault, harassment and rape. These strands knotted together Wednesday in a drama that threatens to break the Internet: the incredibly bizarre, but unbelievably true, story of Fighting Irish star Manti Te’o and his fake online girlfriend.

Te’o was a campus icon: the runner-up Heisman trophy winner, and the acknowledged inspirational leader of a team that came within one game of a national championship. He also, as Deadspin.com reported in a brilliant piece of investigative journalism, shared, knowingly or unknowingly, an elaborate lie with major media outlets about a girlfriend, Stanford student Lennay Kekua, who didn’t really exist. In the last six months as Teo’s fame ballooned, America learned about the football star’s soul mate who suffered a terrible car accident and while hospitalized, discovered that she had leukemia. Lennay, according to Te’o, would stay on the phone with him for eight hours while he slept because hearing him breathe would ease her suffering. In September, she passed away. This tragic relationship was covered in Sports Illustrated, ESPN and even The New York Times. Te’o did interviews where he choked back tears. He spoke of their time together as well as her parents. People raised thousands of dollars in her name for cancer research. Once again, she didn’t exist.

A family friend of Te’o, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, in fact created the fictitious Lennay Kekua. Today I listened to a recording of Te’o on The Jim Rome Show, his voice quavering as he spoke about “Lennay’s death.” The only conclusion one can draw is that he was either the victim of an insanely elaborate grift whose ingenuity would humble David Mamet, or something stinks in South Bend. Either one believes that for three years, Te’o was content with an online relationship that involved neither Skype nor Facetime and just gilded the lily about their meetings. Or this was a ruse that started before anyone knew or cared who Manti Te’o was and as he grew into a college football superstar, it spun out of control. Te’o issued a statement within hours of the Deadspin report claiming that he was the victim of a hoax. A press conference commanded by Te'o is also forthcoming, which will probably resemble a wild life special where a gazelle is feasted upon by a pride of lions. Maybe Te’o, a devout Mormon, wanted to find a way to disengage from a campus hook-up culture that allegedly often strays into sexual assault. But if he is hiding facts about his personal life, it’s hard to imagine the press backing off until they find out exactly what it is. If it was a hoax, then Manti Te’o, a man who would fall in love online, have a three-year long-distance relationship and nurse a young woman through leukemia without ever seeing her in person, should be put in a lab and studied for the greater good.

Yet as with the far more serious previous scandals attached to this storied program, the problem is not just the behavior of students but the moral compass on display by the adults in charge. Within hours of the story breaking online, Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick held a press conference where he backed Te’o to the hilt saying, “Every single thing about this was real to Manti. There was no suspicion. The grief was real, the affection was real, and that’s the sad nature of this cruel game.”

Swarbrick revealed that a private outside firm had been hired to investigate just who had perpetrated this “cruel game.” The athletic director even cried. His behavior only raises more important questions than anything Te’o will face tomorrow. Why hasn’t there been any kind of privately funded, outside investigation into the alleged sexual assaults committed by members of the football team? Why was there no private, outside investigation into Coach Brian Kelly’s role in the death of team videographer Declan Sullivan? It says so much that Te’o’s bizarre soap opera has moved Swarbrick to openly weeping but he hasn’t spared one tear, let alone held one press conference, for Lizzy Seeberg, the young woman who took her own life after coming forward with allegations that a member of the team sexually assaulted her. Swarbrick’s press conference displayed that the problem at Notre Dame is not just football players without a compass; it’s the adults without a conscience. Their credo isn’t any kind of desire for truth or justice. Instead it seems to be little more than a constant effort to protect the Fighting Irish brand, no matter who gets hurt.

[OptiMized]

read the catfish tv show wiki page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish:_The_TV_Show

some of the episodes are pretty crazy. all episodes focus on "couples" that had been "talking" for a long time (they range from 8 months to 10 years). The show was renewed on December 19, maybe they new that this story would give them free publicity.

[Pinstripe power]

The only way for him to come out of this and look like a semi respectable person would be to come out of the closet. I believe that this was a cover for his sexualitu because its more plausible than him being a despicable person out for publicity and money. I could be wrong though.

how would it be for publicity or money? it happened the same time as his grandma dying, so adding her doesn't make the story that much better and it was before he was a heisman candidate and before ND was even ranked. its defiently a persoanl thing, whether he be gay, a liar or what not

[MagicHero3]

This shares what I've been thinking and saying better and more succinctly than anything else I've found. Mainly the last paragraph.

Not sure if it's been shared...

http://www.thenation.com/blog/172268/crying-manti-teo#

Wow... I didnt hear about any of those stories (in the last paragraph)... That **** is shady. These corrupt *** schools letting kids get away with murder essentially... If you ask me, Rape is equivalent to murder bc you RUIN that persons life FOREVER, and in this case, ended up in them not being able to live with it and taking their own life. I swear to God these high figures feel a sense of invincibility or something. They need to be put in their place. They need to be exposed and punished.

[jpro611]

He's so obviously guilty

You don't have "girlfriend" for 3 years that you've never met and a story gets that crazy... It just doesn't happen

And if you mention the show "catfish"... That show is on MTV and is fake

[Pinstripe power]

People like human interest stories. We always have, whether it's college sports or professional athletes or actors or musicians or politicians. A guy on TV had a crazy and tragic thing happen to him, it's going to be reported.

You tell me: Would you rather hear a story about a guy that loves his dying girlfriend, or another story about someone beating the hell out of a kid?

thats the problem. these people are kids, not professionals. leave their personal lives be. i don't know why this became such a big story, but the blame should be pointed at ESPN and the media not Teo (esepcailly since they have ran it for months not chekcing into it obviously). Teo is not the one who had been running with the story publcially for the last 6 months.

[ManRamForPrez24]

Wow... I didnt hear about any of those stories (in the last paragraph)... That **** is shady. These corrupt *** schools letting kids get away with murder essentially... If you ask me, Rape is equivalent to murder bc you RUIN that persons life FOREVER, and in this case, ended up in them not being able to live with it and taking their own life. I swear to God these high figures feel a sense of invincibility or something. They need to be put in their place. They need to be exposed and punished.

Therein lies the problem.

They were relatively wide reported, but the main stream media (god I sound like a wacky Conservative) only picked up on the Declan Sullivan story briefly, and rarely went in depth.

Obviously what has gone on there, and what might still be going on (depending on the nature of this Te'o thing), isn't as bad as what went on at PSU, but it wreaks of the same "protect our image at all costs for the sake of the football team". And that's such a terrible, and prevalent, problem in college sports right now.