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Man, oh, Manti! The heart-warming story of Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o morphed to surreal when it officially became unreal. All because his dead girlfriend is/was unreal.
Karina Marie is Playboy’s Miss January. Not Manti Te’o’s girlfriend.
Deadspin.com ran an article Wednesday (Jan. 16) that claimed Te’o’s tale of a girlfriend who died during the season was a hoax. The article is available here.
And it’s not that Leenay Kekua didn’t die. She didn’t exist.
The Deadspin story started thusly:
Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school’s football program back to glory, Te’o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te’o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua.
Kekua, 22 years old, had been in a serious car accident in California, and then had been diagnosed with leukemia. SI’s Pete Thamel described how Te’o would phone her in her hospital room and stay on the line with her as he slept through the night. “Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice,” Thamel wrote.
Upon receiving the news of the two deaths, Te’o went out and led the Fighting Irish to a 20-3 upset of Michigan State, racking up 12 tackles. It was heartbreaking and inspirational. Te’o would appear on ESPN’s College GameDay to talk about the letters Kekua had written him during her illness. He would send a heartfelt letter to the parents of a sick child, discussing his experience with disease and grief. The South Bend Tribune wrote an article describing the young couple’s fairytale meeting—she, a Stanford student; he, a Notre Dame star—after a football game outside Palo Alto.
Shawn Dillon, Playboy’s Miss February. Not Te’o’s girlfriend.
Notre Dame spokesman/assistant vice president Dennis Brown provided the school’s intial respons after the Deadspin story’s pubication:
On Dec. 26, Notre Dame coaches were informed by Manti Te’o and his parents that Manti had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia. The University immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax. While the proper authorities will continue to investigate this troubling matter, this appears to be, at a minimum, a sad and very cruel deception to entertain its perpetrators.
Shortly after, Te’o issued a statement:
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.
In the evening, athletic director Jack Swarbrick held a news conference at which he said Te’o was the victim of a hoax rather than a participant in it. The transcript from the press conference is available here.
Twitter had a field day with the story. Among the tweets were these:
* Seth Meyers @sethmeyers21: These Te’o jokes are all very funny but let’s all try and remember that a person who never existed is dead.
* daveweigel @daveweigel: Manti Teo’s girlfriend IS real, if only you believe in her! Come on, everybody! Clap your hands!
* Jaclyn Sabol @MagazineJac: Since when does a Notre Dame football star need to date an imaginary girl online? #mantiteo #catfish
* RainnWilson @rainnwilson: I don’t know what’s worse, a dead girlfriend or a dead girlfriend who never existed.
Monica Murphy-Vargas
If it’s Thursday (which the editorial staff at elliottharris.com believes it is in that yesterday was Wednesday — provided that you are reading this on Jan. 17 or a subsequent Thursday), then it is time once again for “Sports & Torts” with co-hosts David Spada and Elliott Harris. The highly acclaimed interview program (well, in the Spada and Harris households and rumor has it elsewhere, too) is broadcast live at noon Chicago time on talkzone.com. It also will be available later in the day on podcast.
The guests on the Jan. 17 show are entrepreneur Monica Murphy-Vargas and former Baltimore Colts star Lenny Moore.
Monica is the founder/owner of SportsDivas, Inc. She has a site — sportsdivasinc.com — that is designed primarily for females but works for males, too.
Speaking of Thursday, that’s the date for seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong’s TV interview with Oprah Winfrey. The Notre Dame saga may mute some of the cyclist’s session during which he finally admits to doping. Thankfully, we have Tuesday night’s Top Ten list from David Letterman’s “Late Show.” Here are the “Top Ten Other Lance Armstrong Revelations:”
10. “Artificially enhanced his cycling shorts.”
9. “Still never leaves the house without several vials of clean urine.”
8. “Owns Texas estate known as ‘Rancho Decepto.’”
7. “Took steroids to work up the strength to admit taking steroids.”
6. “Once had an inappropriate relationship with an air hose.”
5. “Also has a tattoo of Rex Ryan’s wife.”
4. “Has given up on making the Baseball Hall of Fame.”
3. “United States Postal Service paid him in stamps.”
2. “Started erotic website, ‘Tour de Pants.’”
1. “Admitted to doping just to get on ‘Oprah.’
It has been a while since we last ran some video from the Chicago Crave’s bikini basketball tryouts. Well, we certainly can fix that:
Despite all this activity, the video-research department found time to come up with these non-gratuitous videos (then again, anything around here qualifies as non-gratutious):
Advertising opportunities are available on ElliottHarris.com (which had 999,989 hits in December), For information and rates, contact sales@elliottharris.com.