• For users coming over from tmlfans.ca your username will remain the same but you will need to use the password reset feature (check your spam folder) on the login page in order to set your password. If you encounter issues, email Rick couchmanrick@gmail.com

Easily one of the strangest stories I've ever read

Kin

Kin

Active member
Manti Te'o, Notre Dame Linebacker and Heisman trophy runner up, made big news this year when just after his girlfriend died of Leukemia he played against Michigan State and had two interceptions in a close win.

It made big news, ESPN ran a profile on it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BGgIwSc8M3M[/youtube]

Except now, apparently, it's unravelling. The girlfriend didn't exist. Te'o says the hoax was perpetrated on him and he never actually met the girl he thought he was in an online relationship with. People think that the girlfriend's twitter account(using pictures of some other actual person, taken from her facebook account) was started by a friend of Te'o's family.

Here's the report on the hoax at Deadspin: Te'O's Girlfriend a hoax

Honestly, I'm not doing it justice. It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.
 
I saw that as well on CBS

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/eye-on-college-football/21563964/notre-dame-teo-say-linebacker-was-victim-of-hoax

But was so caught off guard by the bizarre nature of the story that I hesitated and I pondered the story. 

I was at CBS researching why Erik Gudbranson had been suspended indefinitely by the Florida Panthers.
 
Listen to his interview with Jim Rome from mid-October it gave me the creeps! Nobody talks like that and holds it together just a few short weeks after the love of their life dies.
This guy made the whole damn thing up to draw attention to himself in the national media and they bit like suckers!
Notre Dame knew the whole thing was fake in December, yet they let stories about the "girlfriend" air prior to the national championship game!
This story is like an onion with so many layers of lies and lots of blame to go around.
Lance Armstrong is one lucky SOB right now!  ;)
 
Britishbulldog said:
I was at CBS researching why Erik Gudbranson had been suspended indefinitely by the Florida Panthers.
Click to expand...

he's been suspended since November.....during the lockout?!..... apparently injured himself while wakeboarding. Perhaps that is not allowed while under contract and he was suspended to avoid having to pay him cause he's injured or some such?
 
So Nik, do you think Te'o was in on it, or was he a victim here?

In the states this is the only story on the news right now and is being dissected every which way.  So many questions that still need to be answered, so many things just don't add up. 
 
lc9 said:
So Nik, do you think Te'o was in on it, or was he a victim here?

In the states this is the only story on the news right now and is being dissected every which way.  So many questions that still need to be answered, so many things just don't add up.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I don't know. I heard a couple of radio interviews with the writers behind the deadspin piece where they said that his story doesn't really add up and that it's almost certain that he was in on it but I think that a lot of the confusion could, emphasis on could, be attributed to Te'o being a somewhat sheltered, perhaps none too internet savvy guy who was a little embarrassed that the girl he was "dating" was someone he met online.

I know some people have asked that if he was the victim of a hoax, what the purpose of it could possibly be but I remember a while back something kind of similar happened where there was a somewhat popular blog that was purportedly written by a young Syrian woman talking about what it was like to be a young gay woman in a fairly repressive culture that turned out to be written by some guy in his 30's who was a PhD candidate in Scotland. Not only had this guy maintained the charade but, like the people in this case, he'd fooled some woman in the states into thinking she was his fictitious creation's girlfriend.

Here's that story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/13/syrian-lesbian-blogger-tom-macmaster

So there are definitely people out there who do this kind of thing. It doesn't completely strike me as impossible that Te'o just fell victim to it but because of his embarrassment lies were compounded by lies and because of his fame those lies reached the press.

That said, it's still hard to believe that in this day and age any one could be that un-internet savvy.
 
I saw a tweet yesterday (will have to wade through tons to find it) from a reporter who said Te'o spoke of this girlfriend in early January, which would have been after ND claims they discovered it was false, and never said anything was different.
 
:)

(Minimized for language)

@realDonaldTrump
Congratulations to Tom Scocca and Timothy Burke of @Deadspin for exposing the Manti Te?o fiasco


Deadspin ‏@Deadspin
@realDonaldTrump Go fuck yourself.

 
This story gets more homoerotic by the day

"It didn't sound like a man," Te'o told Couric during the interview that aired Thursday. "It sounded like a woman. It's incredible that he can make that noise."

What "noise" would that be Manti?  :-[

Full Story
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top