Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax - Page 5 - Basketball Forum : Professional and College Basketball Forums

**Dissonance** · 01-17-2013, 02:23 PM

Clearly, you are missing the point. It's more on you that you don't see anything wrong with it and/or why it's not a story. Read Adam's post again. Yes, it has nothing to do with his abilities, with how he played, National title game, or other nonsensical stuff you're ranting about. But doesn't make it any less of a story just because it's not about football and you're wondering why we're talking about it. Why does it bother you so much that we should get the lives for talking about it? Maybe you should get one for having the need to wonder why or for simple of fact of going on about it so much. It's like a personal vendetta for you.

**RollWithEm** · 01-17-2013, 02:25 PM

I'm starting to think FSH is trolling us all because he was bored.

**Dissonance** · 01-17-2013, 02:34 PM

Hm. He has admittedly done it before.

hobojoe · 01-17-2013, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam

This isn't about his football abilities. This is about him allegedly perpetrating a hoax about a dying girl with cancer and profiting from it. I can't tell if your posts in this thread are naive white knighting or trolling.

He's serious, look at his track record. I was told the last time he started ranting nonsense that questioning another poster's intellectual capabilities is not allowed on this site, but to answer your question yes he is very serious.

But back on topic, this is about as weird of a sports story as you'll ever find. It's going to be fascinating to watch this unfold and see how it affects his NFL career. To comment on him being a victim in this case, I think it's an insult to our intelligence for him to try to claim that he wasn't in on it.

Nimreitz · 01-17-2013, 05:00 PM

It's current events. And this is interesting. That's why we care. If Matt Damon was nominated for an Oscar and his girlfriend died in the run up, but then it turned out he never had a girlfriend at all and just carried on an internet relationship, it would be pretty ****ing interesting and we would care about that too.

**Prince** · 01-17-2013, 05:57 PM

Quote:

TO: Malcolm Gladwell
FROM: Chuck Klosterman
[Wednesday, 9:04 p.m.]

Dear Malcolm:

I'm writing this on Wednesday night, roughly three hours after discovering that Manti Te'o's deceased girlfriend was 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen. Let me open by saying I totally saw this coming. All season long, after every Notre Dame win, I would turn to my wife and casually remark, "The Irish truly have a great defense — except for all their fake relationships with nonexistent leukemia victims. That's gonna cause problems when they face somebody from the SEC."

That said: This is perhaps the goofiest "non-sports" sports story we've experienced since Tonya Harding. It's such an aggressively modern scandal. I would guess a sizable chunk of the college football fan base doesn't even understand how faking an online identity is possible (it appears the only real winner here is Nev Schulman). What's interesting to me is how everyone seems vaguely outraged, but no one seems particularly angry. But — then again — what is there to be angry about? If we don't classify Te'o as the victim, there's no victim at all. I suppose some people might feel "betrayed" for having been tricked into caring about Te'o's unreal romantic hardship, but that doesn't make much sense; the public's intangible, mediated relationship with Te'o isn't that different from Te'o's intangible, mediated relationship with a woman who wasn't there.

I suppose we should start with the obvious: To what degree do you believe Te'o's version of the events? It seems like there are three potential scenarios:

1. He was completely fooled all season (only realizing the depth of the deception a few days before reporting it to Notre Dame authorities on December 26).
2. He was initially fooled, yet continued to perpetuate the hoax even after he realized he'd been duped (either for the benefit of public relations or to hide his own humiliation).
3. He was totally complicit the whole time.
The first scenario seems remote. The last scenario is not unthinkable, but still improbable (the risk of such a lie outweighs its potential reward by a factor of 20 — it's not like Te'o doesn't become a Heisman finalist if his backstory only contains one dead grandma). My gut assumption is that the second scenario is what happened: He was tricked by someone with cruel, unclear intentions. He was willfully naive, and he made the massive mistake of talking about his love for a woman he'd never actually met. But people (and particularly the media) adored the story, so he just kept telling it, even after the realization that it was a hugely problematic myth. So this is the real question: Why did he keep going?

[UPDATE: OK, so now I'm watching the Notre Dame press conference led by Jack Swarbrick, the vice-president/director of Notre Dame athletics. He's taking an inflexible "pro-Manti" stance and making an OK case for his innocence … although it's difficult to understand how Manti Te'o could travel to Hawaii to visit his "girlfriend" without actually seeing her, unless he's just a profoundly confused person. Going to Hawaii to see a girl and then merely texting with her (the whole time you're there) is the equivalent of taking the Wonderlic Test and scoring a negative 36. I feel like I have opinions about this case, but it seems wrong to express them … it's just too early in the process to make any rational judgments. To me, the most interesting (and the least credible) detail from the original Deadspin story was the unnamed source who claims to be "80 percent sure" that Te'o was complicit with the hoax (and complied for publicity motives). What a strange percentage to select. I mean, if you know someone is involved with a scandal, you say you're 100 percent (or perhaps 99 percent) certain. If you think they were involved (but you have no evidence or firsthand insight), you probably say it's 50-50. But what does "80 percent" represent in speculative terms? Does it mean that he has no proof (but still wants to suggest that his theory is true)? Does it mean he's looking at the evidence objectively and has concluded that there's an 80 percent likelihood that Te'o knew what was happening? Did he just pick a percentage at random, perhaps because the reporter kept asking him to quantify his suspicions in mathematical terms? There is something here that feels fake, and it's not just the girlfriend.]

TO: Chuck Klosterman
FROM: Malcolm Gladwell
[Thursday, 12:43 a.m.]

Chuck:

Hold on. Hold on. I think we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Before we get into the question of what Manti Te'o did and didn't know, can we go back and reflect on the singular genius of the hoax itself? The young girlfriend of a prominent football player is severely injured in a car crash and then dies of leukemia. It's so good. It's three of the great modern inspirational narratives, all in one.

The first element is: beautiful young girl dies of leukemia. It's Love Story, right? The most influential Hollywood tearjerker of the past 50 years. Ali MacGraw dies tragically of leukemia, leaving Ryan O'Neal bereft: Love means never having to say you're sorry.

Then there's the "inspirational outsider" motif, which goes all the way back to Notre Dame, Knute Rockne, and the famous "win one for the Gipper" speech. Notre Dame's star, George Gipp, is on his deathbed with pneumonia. He says to Rockne (at least in the movie version):

"I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Sometime, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy."
On the strength of that inspiration, Notre Dame rises up and beats previously undefeated Army 12-6.

Chuck Pagano, stricken with leukemia and inspiring the Colts this year from his hospital bed, is a version of this. Or remember Pete Sampras playing an epic five-setter with Jim Courier just after hearing that his coach, Tim Gullikson, had suffered what appeared to be his third stroke within three months, on his way to dying of brain cancer. Deep in the match, a spectator yells out, "Win it for your coach, Pete," and Sampras, suffering through severely blistered feet, bursts into tears.

The crucial element of this kind of story is that the off-the-field tragedy does not diminish the importance of the game (as you would expect, logically, that it might). It makes the athlete take his task even more seriously. Sampras goes on to win the match. (Of course.) The Colts overachieve. When Pittsburgh Pirates manager Chuck Tanner's mother died just before Game 5 of the 1979 World Series, Tanner, famously, goes ahead and manages the game because his mother would have wanted him to keep working. That's why it's so crucial, for narrative purposes, that Te'o didn't go to his girlfriend's funeral — even though, you know, a man might reasonably be expected to want to go to his girlfriend's funeral. She told him, he said, that she didn't want him to miss a game.

Then comes the third part — the Icarus myth. Our hero flies too close to the sun. This is the story of the star who dies tragically in a car or plane crash. The examples here are almost too numerous to mention: Steve Prefontaine, Thurman Munson, Roberto Clemente, Jerome Brown, Ayrton Senna, Derrick Thomas — not to mention the granddaddy of them all, James Dean. Too fast to live, too young to die.

Typically, these are entirely separate narratives. In a way that might not be appreciated today, Love Story is very much about leukemia. That was the culturally resonant disease of that era. It struck healthy, innocent young people, entirely at random. The death rate was close to 100 percent. The Icarus narrative is completely different. It's not about innocence. It's about the heroic self-destructiveness of youth. James Dean was a rebel without a cause. Jerome Brown was a man-child. The whole point of Pre's genius is that he pushed himself to the absolute limit.

There's a great moment in Ray Robinson's Rockne of Notre Dame when he describes Rockne taking his team down to play Georgia Tech in the 1920s. This was the heart of Ku Klux Klan country — and the Klan, of course, hated Catholics as much as they hated blacks and Jews. In the locker room before the game, Rockne gave his usual passionate speech about pride and dedication, then suddenly lowered his voice. Robinson writes:

Arriving at this climax, Rockne slowly removed a crumpled telegraph from his pocket. In silence he stared at the words on the missive. Then he began to read aloud: "PLEASE WIN THIS GAME FOR MY DADDY. IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO HIM."
"It's from Billy," Rockne said, referring to his beloved 6-year-old son, the team's unofficial mascot. "He's very ill and is in the hospital." When Rockne finished, some of the players, Robinson writes, "began to cry, while others jumped up from their perches and swore they would annihilate Tech just for Billy. Indeed, that's exactly what they proceeded to do."

Billy was not the girlfriend of the quarterback. He did not mortally injure himself taking drugs or driving too fast. He was narrowly and specifically in the second, "inspirational outsider" category.

So what is so fantastic about the Manti Te'o story? It is all three narratives, all in one. It's Love Story meets Icarus meets inspirational outsider. It wasn't enough that Manti's love affair be doomed, that his girlfriend had leukemia, and that he drew from her death the inspiration to go out and get 12 tackles in the crucial defeat of Michigan State. She also had to be severely injured in a car accident. It's a combo platter! It's so over-the-top I am in awe. You couldn't be more right that this is an "aggressively modern" scandal. Why would anyone in the 21st century settle for just one played-out story line?

What's not modern, though, is the made-up part. "Billy," Knute Rockne's son? Totally healthy back home in South Bend.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...rman-manti-teo

ATLien · 01-17-2013, 06:55 PM

Ugh @ Klosterman and Gladwell

**Prince** · 01-17-2013, 11:06 PM

Klosterman is awesome.

Nimreitz · 01-18-2013, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ATLien

Ugh @ Klosterman and Gladwell

That was, without a doubt, the most boring and self important wank I have ever read. And I usually like Klosterman.

**RollWithEm** · 01-18-2013, 03:31 AM

Leave it to Gladwell to work the Icarus myth into this story.

**Cinco de Mayo** · 01-18-2013, 07:52 AM

Klosterman is an unreadable geek.

**Prince** · 01-18-2013, 08:20 AM

Yeah I wish it was a regular article from Chuck because I can do without Gladwell being involved.

Mr. Hobbes · 01-18-2013, 03:50 PM

Gladwell's Greek myth rant takes it really far, but the point is valid.

Teo tried to turn his senior season into a storyline straight out of a Disney movie. The dead loved ones storyline can raise his draft stock and perhaps his endorsement value. "Look at how he overcomes adversity!"

Now his entourage/family/PR firm are trying to scapegoat everyone but him. They're full of shit.

And he can't shed blocks.

UD40 · 01-18-2013, 03:54 PM

So Notre Dame took part in a fundraiser for Kekua's on January 9th.

Lie much, ND?

**Dissonance** · 01-18-2013, 03:54 PM

Newspaper: “Lennay” Called Manti Te’o In December And Said She’d Faked Her Death To Elude Drug Dealers

Quote:

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, citing a source "close to the Te'o family," has the particulars of a phone conversation between Manti Te'o and "Lennay Kekua" in December, three months after "Lennay" had supposedly died.

Manti Te'o has told family and friends that the woman who was the voice of his fictitious girlfriend "Lennay Kekua" called him in December and said she had to fake her own death months earlier to elude drug dealers, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser has learned.

The woman, who has yet to be identified, tried to re-engage a relationship with Te‘o months after she supposedly had died of leukemia in early September, the Notre Dame All-American linebacker has told the people close to him. The account was shared with the Star-Advertiser by a source close to the Te‘o family.

According to the account, Te'o asked the woman to transmit a photo to him with a date stamp, which she did, but this did not allay his suspicions and he later told his family and Notre Dame officials about being scammed.

Presumably, this is the same Dec. 6 phone call that Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick referenced during his press conference on Wednesday night, although the Star-Advertiser avoids making a direct connection.

01-17-2013, 02:23 PM	#61 (permalink)
Dissonance Super Bowl Champs Join Date: Jul 2004 Age: 30 Posts: 44,758 Rep Power: 16893179	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax Clearly, you are missing the point. It's more on you that you don't see anything wrong with it and/or why it's not a story. Read Adam's post again. Yes, it has nothing to do with his abilities, with how he played, National title game, or other nonsensical stuff you're ranting about. But doesn't make it any less of a story just because it's not about football and you're wondering why we're talking about it. Why does it bother you so much that we should get the lives for talking about it? Maybe you should get one for having the need to wonder why or for simple of fact of going on about it so much. It's like a personal vendetta for you.

01-17-2013, 02:25 PM	#62 (permalink)
RollWithEm Never Argue with a Fool Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: New Orleans Posts: 28,003 Rep Power: 5962494	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax I'm starting to think FSH is trolling us all because he was bored. __________________ But that's just me. RWE's Random Questions: (Close Friends, Virginity, Home-Schooling, Wiretapping, Cheating, Piracy) RWE's Movie Rankings: (Coen Brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Top 90 of the 90's) RWE's Underground Update - RWE's SciFi Corner RWE's Smash Central - RWE's Culinary Cul de Sac 2015 FRSL Champion New Orleans Jazz Lawson - Thabo - Thad - Brow - Big Al - Manu - Jayson

01-17-2013, 02:34 PM	#63 (permalink)
Dissonance Super Bowl Champs Join Date: Jul 2004 Age: 30 Posts: 44,758 Rep Power: 16893179	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax Hm. He has admittedly done it before.

01-17-2013, 05:00 PM	#65 (permalink)
Nimreitz Legend Join Date: May 2003 Location: Milwaukee, WI Age: 29 Posts: 16,247 Rep Power: 14813408	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax It's current events. And this is interesting. That's why we care. If Matt Damon was nominated for an Oscar and his girlfriend died in the run up, but then it turned out he never had a girlfriend at all and just carried on an internet relationship, it would be pretty ****ing interesting and we would care about that too.

01-17-2013, 06:55 PM	#67 (permalink)
ATLien Icon Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 45,733 Rep Power: 21472363	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax Ugh @ Klosterman and Gladwell

01-17-2013, 11:06 PM	#68 (permalink)
Prince Formerly Known as Quite Frankly Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Wisconsin Age: 22 Posts: 11,764 Rep Power: 4532849	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax Klosterman is awesome. __________________ 2032 KVBL Champions: Milwaukee Bucks (Prince) Lineup - PG D'Angelo McMillian \| SG Eddy Sweet \| SF Cameron Clothier \| PF Mario Rogic \| C Greg Hope \| 6th man C Andre Wright Finals MVP: Greg Hope 2033 KVBL Champions: Milwaukee Bucks (Prince) Lineup - PG D'Angelo McMillian \| SG Joseph McDaniels \| SF Cameron Clothier \| PF Mario Rogic \| C Greg Hope \| 6th man C Peter Acres Finals MVP: Greg Hope Fear the Deer Minnesota Timberwolves

01-18-2013, 03:31 AM	#70 (permalink)
RollWithEm Never Argue with a Fool Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: New Orleans Posts: 28,003 Rep Power: 5962494	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax Leave it to Gladwell to work the Icarus myth into this story. __________________ But that's just me. RWE's Random Questions: (Close Friends, Virginity, Home-Schooling, Wiretapping, Cheating, Piracy) RWE's Movie Rankings: (Coen Brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Top 90 of the 90's) RWE's Underground Update - RWE's SciFi Corner RWE's Smash Central - RWE's Culinary Cul de Sac 2015 FRSL Champion New Orleans Jazz Lawson - Thabo - Thad - Brow - Big Al - Manu - Jayson

01-18-2013, 07:52 AM	#71 (permalink)
Cinco de Mayo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Join Date: Aug 2002 Age: 30 Posts: 26,613 Rep Power: 21474873	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax Klosterman is an unreadable geek. __________________ JOHNJOHNJOHNJOHN JOHNJOHNJOHNJOHN JOHNJOHNJOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN JOHNJOHNJOHNJOHN JOHNJOHNJOHNJOHN JOHNJOHNJOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN JOHNJOHN

01-18-2013, 08:20 AM	#72 (permalink)
Prince Formerly Known as Quite Frankly Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Wisconsin Age: 22 Posts: 11,764 Rep Power: 4532849	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax Yeah I wish it was a regular article from Chuck because I can do without Gladwell being involved. __________________ 2032 KVBL Champions: Milwaukee Bucks (Prince) Lineup - PG D'Angelo McMillian \| SG Eddy Sweet \| SF Cameron Clothier \| PF Mario Rogic \| C Greg Hope \| 6th man C Andre Wright Finals MVP: Greg Hope 2033 KVBL Champions: Milwaukee Bucks (Prince) Lineup - PG D'Angelo McMillian \| SG Joseph McDaniels \| SF Cameron Clothier \| PF Mario Rogic \| C Greg Hope \| 6th man C Peter Acres Finals MVP: Greg Hope Fear the Deer Minnesota Timberwolves

01-18-2013, 03:50 PM	#73 (permalink)
Mr. Hobbes Legend Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Seattle Posts: 19,469 Rep Power: 21474863	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax Gladwell's Greek myth rant takes it really far, but the point is valid. Teo tried to turn his senior season into a storyline straight out of a Disney movie. The dead loved ones storyline can raise his draft stock and perhaps his endorsement value. "Look at how he overcomes adversity!" Now his entourage/family/PR firm are trying to scapegoat everyone but him. They're full of shit. And he can't shed blocks. __________________ don't edit me bro

01-18-2013, 03:54 PM	#74 (permalink)
UD40 Watch The Throne Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 18,531 Rep Power: 8119766	Re: Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend A Hoax So Notre Dame took part in a fundraiser for Kekua's on January 9th. Lie much, ND? __________________ All Heat First Team Tim Hardaway Dwyane Wade LeBron James Chris Bosh Alonzo Mourning All Heat Second Team Mario Chalmers Eddie Jones Glen Rice Udonis Haslem Shaquille O'Neal

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