Notre Dame Vice President/Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick makes statement on Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Allegations
Facing a media throng just days before competing for a national championship, Notre Dame's star linebacker Manti Te'o fielded a question about the death of his girlfriend and his ability to rise above the tragedy.
It was a benign question, one he had heard dozen of times before as Lennay Kekua's passing had been woven so tightly into the narrative of his triumphant senior year. And he answered it as he always had.
But at that time, Te'o — and university officials — knew there was far more to the story than platitudes about football and family.
A week earlier, on Dec. 26, the Heisman Trophy runner-up told Notre Dame officials that his girlfriend did not exist and that he was a victim of an elaborate Internet hoax, the school said Wednesday.
"In many ways, Manti was the perfect mark because he is a guy who is so willing to believe in others and so ready to help, that as this hoax played out in a way that called upon those tendencies of Manti, it roped him more and more into the trap," Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said. "He was not a person who would have a second thought about offering his assistance and help."
Swarbrick outlined a bizarre story in which Te'o learned his girlfriend never existed about three months after her supposed death. The player received a phone call Dec. 6, while at an awards show, from what he believed was Kekua's old cellphone number. The woman on the other end — in a voice he recognized as Kekua's — told him that she wasn't dead.
Two days after Te'o was thrown for a loop by a dead girlfriend rising from the grave, here is how he answered a question about charity work he had performed this year.
"I worked with Relay for Life stuff," he said. "I really got hit with cancer. I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer."
She later tried to rekindle the relationship, Swarbrick said.
"Every single thing about this, until that day in the first week of December, was real to Manti," Swarbrick said. "There was no suspicion it wasn't. No belief it might not be. And so the pain was real. The grief was real. The affection was real. That's the nature of this sad, cruel game."
Swarbrick likened the hoax to the movie"Catfish
"Every single thing about this, until that day in the first week of December, was real to Manti," Swarbrick said. "There was no suspicion it wasn't. No belief it might not be. And so the pain was real. The grief was real. The affection was real. That's the nature of this sad, cruel game."
Swarbrick likened the hoax to the movie "Catfish," in which a person creates a fake persona with someone else's picture, then dupes another person into a romantic relationship. The film spurred a popular MTV show by the same name that investigates online relationships to see if the participants are real.
Te'o notified his coaches of the situation Dec. 26, after discussing it with his parents over the Christmas holiday. Swarbrick said he met with the player twice and found his story about the exclusively online and telephonic relationship to be consistent. Te'o and Kekua never met face to face, Swarbrick said.
"Several meetings were set up where Lennay never showed," he said.
Kekua's purported passing came within 48 hours of the real death of Te'o's grandmother, Annette Santiago, in September. That double loss vaulted Te'o onto the cover of Sports Illustrated and, along with Notre Dame's eventual undefeated regular season, into the Heisman Trophy mix.
Te'o finished second in that voting to Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, tying for the best finish ever by a pure defender.
The scam does more than shatter a college football fairy tale. It also leaves a black mark on sports journalism, as many news outlets — including the Tribune — ran stories about Kekua's passing without verifying her death. There was no published obituary for Kekua and no California driver's license issued to anyone with that name. The Social Security Administration database had no record of anyone with the surname Kekua dying in 2012.
Yet respected national publications such as Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times all ran stories about Te'o's heartbreak. The Chicago Tribune published 15 articles mentioning her death in the past four months.
An Academic All-American with a 3.3 grade-point average, Te'o, 21, released a statement Wednesday insisting that he had been duped into having a long-term, "emotional relationship" with an Internet impostor. Describing the situation as "painful and humiliating," Te'o said he believed he maintained an authentic relationship with Kekua over the phone and via the Internet.
Notre Dame A.D.: Te'o victim of 'sad and very cruel deception'
This article
Notre Dame A.D.: Te'o victim of 'sad and very cruel deception'
can be opened in url
http://marianissima-airlines.blogspot.com/2013/01/notre-dame-ad-te-victim-of-and-very.html
Notre Dame A.D.: Te'o victim of 'sad and very cruel deception'
Rating: 100% based on 99998 ratings. 5 user reviews.
Author: Marianissima Airlines News
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment
