Deadspin is saying Te'o's girlfriend's death was a hoax created for publicity

MattinBama

Hall of Fame
Jul 31, 2007
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This was no ordinary girlfriend.... "she" was the "love of his life."

But it's cool if "she"'s in the hospital dying, just fly on home to Hawaii and not worry about stopping in to check on the bees knees dream girl soulmate.
 

TideMom2Boys

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Nov 17, 2010
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This was no ordinary girlfriend.... "she" was the "love of his life."

But it's cool if "she"'s in the hospital dying, just fly on home to Hawaii and not worry about stopping in to check on the bees knees dream girl soulmate.

This is another hole in his story. Since didn't she get in the "accident" in April? Why didn't he use his down time in the off season to visit his dying GF?
 

Hoot30

All-SEC
Jan 12, 2005
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Te'o is in on it and is Gay and I have no problem with that. But then there is this sad part about her death that is too much. All he has to do is say they broke up and stop communicating online. I think this over coming adversity with the death of his girlfriend helped Te'o with Heisman votes and he knew about it and played it up bigtime.
I'm not buying this argument as being the reason for the hoax. A UND student has already posted an article that claims it was well known that he dated girls on campus.

http://collegespun.com/big-east/not...-manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-hoax#.UPlfQWdRSAI

"The debate among teammates wasn’t whether or not Manti actually knew this girl — it was clear that they had been in contact; no, players just didn’t think that it was fair to call Lennay Kekua Manti’s girlfriend, period (it is well-known on campus that he has had relations with other girls during his time at Notre Dame).

If he was trying to cover up a lifestyle, would it not be much easier to use an actual female student on campus to "date" rather than to use a fake one, play-up a coma, then subsequent death to leukemia?
 
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Rasputin

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Apr 15, 2008
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Something that I don't understand is, there are reports that people sent flowers to the address given to them for the funeral. That adderess would have to be in Cali and if so, wouldn't that mean somewhere there was a funeral home or person getting flowers from Notre Dame? Wouldn't that place try to get in touch with Notre Dame tell them know the address was not correct.
Supposedly the address they sent the flowers to was Tuasosopo's...
 

davefrat

Hall of Fame
Jun 4, 2002
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Hopewell, VA

So here's my list of the five most likely outcomes:



1.) The perp confesses to everything and takes credit for working for three years to inflict harm on a young man in the public eye. He does this in a 1-on-1 interview with Deadspin or some other non-traditional media organization and cashes in on his 30 seconds of infamy. I put the probability at 40%.


I assign this high of a probability because there are several plausible factors that might force this option. First, if this was indeed a catfisher, if they do not reveal themselves then they do not get the glory. For a sociopath, that would take all of the gloryhole out of it. Second, CAA and Manti's lawyers may be putting the squeeze on them. Third, if it's just some jackhole living in his Dad's basement, then he will probably cave under the sign of pressure.


2.) The perp confesses but claims Manti is a willing co-conspirator. This statement will also likely be made to Deadspin or their ilk. I put this probability at 15%.


If the perp drags Te'o into it (rightly or wrongly), he's denying himself credit for pulling off a great (from his/her point of view) scam. However, the one thing catfisher/sociopaths love more than attention is ....ing people off.


3.) Manti's lawyers and CAA are waiting for the perp to make a move before saying anything because they've got a truckload of evidence on their side. So, they are waiting for this perp to come out with something hoping to swoop in, do a massive document drop to several outlets and completely discredit whoever is behind this. I assign a probability of 20%.


4.) Manti lied about everything and is in sociopathic cahoots with the bad guys. CAA knows this and is hoping that the other perp won't down him. Or, they have bought silence. Since he has zero documented problems in his history with authority, I assign a probability of 5%.


5.) There was an attempt to extort Manti in the last few weeks and law enforcement is now involved. I am envisioning federal grand jury, so the whole thing is sealed, and he was advised not to speak on the matter until an indictment is handed down. I assign a probability of 20%.

your scenario #1 makes no sense because who (outside some people in hawaii and south bend) even knew who manti teo was in 2009? someone's going to construct and implement this elaborate hoax on someone hardly anyone's ever heard of? what, in hopes that in a few years he'd be famous? what, exactly would an unheard of player have to have done to someone to make them so comic book super villain obsessed with a relative no body?
 

GreatMarch

All-SEC
Dec 10, 2010
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I have not read this entire thread and I do not know if this has been mentioned. Manti Te'o had a good year on the field (although I think he was overrated) but he won a ton of player of the year awards, defensive player of the year awards, and finished 2nd in the Heisman. I think his being a part of the ND football team and this dead girlfriend story played bigger roles in his awards than his play on the field. This is where this story steams me. There is a football player that did not play the traditional QB and RB position that normally gets these awards who, in the preseason, got some attention for the big awards but got overshadowed by the Te'o girlfriend story. He was a multi year All American at more than one position, an outstanding student, an example for people of all ages off the field and at times in one game went head to head with Te'o with, what amounts to, a broken foot and whipped Te'o. We all know that is Barrett Jones who was a huge leader for our team since he has been at Bama and I do not mean to put him above any of the other players like Warmack or Nico or CJ or Damien Square who were (and are) talented players, good people and leaders for us. But it seemed that Barrett stood out even among them and was voted as a permanent team captain (along with Nico and Square I believe). While this hoax may not be a criminal or civil fraud, and we are still learning if Te'o was involved (but it does not look good for him) this did rob college football of possibly rewarding a player who WAS very deserving of those awards that Te'o garnered.
Just my 2 cents. Carry on.
 

Rolltide_PA

1st Team
Jul 31, 2011
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ESPN is getting ridiculous. Trying to argue that the Notre Dame AD's zealous defense of Te'o is somehow to be construed as "evidence" of Te'o's innocence is craziness. .
said the same thing when State Penn came out and said they'd start an internal investigation that they were sure would lead to nothing
 

Chukker Veteran

Hall of Fame
Feb 6, 2001
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When somebody goes to the trouble of posting a really long post full of thoughts they'd like other people to read...

Please don't shrink the font size down, it's hard on us oldtimers trying to read it.
 

TideAle

BamaNation Citizen
Dec 6, 2006
50
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NC
I have not read the entire thread also so do not know if this has been discussed as a possibility but what If Notre Dame is behind all this? Program's been dismal for years finally on the way back wouldn't they have the most to gain? Even more then Te'o...
 

rgw

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Sep 15, 2003
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Though ESPN doesn't show very many Notre Dame games due to their NBC contract, they still have to maintain a relationship to keep access to ND's players and coaches. The last few years have proven that ESPN is not serious about the journalistic aspect of their product. Everything is narrative driven and they don't even press for true investigative reporting of emerging information. Stuff like E:60 hardly counts as investigative when they only cover well known occurrences in greater detail.

The real sports journalism has moved into the IT space and ESPN is truly nothing more than a broadcaster shilling their products.
 

B1GTide

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Apr 13, 2012
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Skip Bayless defends Manti as a victim, nothing more. That settles it in my mind. No one on television is wrong as often as Skip Bayless.
 

jps1983

Hall of Fame
Aug 30, 2006
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So does this mean Tuasosopo lived in the town the girl was living. Wasn't Tuasosopo suppose to be someone he knew in real life and if so then it makes even less sense that he didn't go to her town to visit her or that his friend didn't visit her while she was in the hospital.
There are more holes in Teo's story than there were for Lacy and Yeldon on 1/7.
 

Ole Man Dan

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Apr 21, 2008
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So does this mean Tuasosopo lived in the town the girl was living. Wasn't Tuasosopo suppose to be someone he knew in real life and if so then it makes even less sense that he didn't go to her town to visit her or that his friend didn't visit her while she was in the hospital.
Here's the deal... an imaginary girlfriend doesn't really live anywhere. Sounds like the plan was to do whatever is expedient, tell whatever lie is convenient. If Ta'o wasn't in on the plan, he was obviously too stupid to realize what was going on. Either way, I think Ta'o was just that stupid.
 

westide

All-SEC
Jan 22, 2011
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Notre Shame had to defend Te'o because they found out about the hoax on Dec. 26th, but allowed news organizations to continue to air the story of Te'o's dead girlfriend. They are partners with Te'o in the deceit. I wish someone would ask them to reveal the extent of their investigation and to make their findings public.
 

rgw

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Sep 15, 2003
20,852
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232
Tuscaloosa
Skip Bayless is the encapsulation of the modern ESPN journalistic mission.


Yesterday on Finebaum a reporter was talking about an editor who years ago told him, "I'd rather be right than fast." I thought he said fat instead of fast at first. I think my mind was playing a trick to lead me to the bigger point: ESPN is too fat to provide hard journalism. Journalism can only thrive when the business has a singular goal: providing what they believe to be the truth. ESPN may have plenty of guys behind the camera and on the screen who desire to meet that goal but there are too many stakeholders at ESPN. The hard truth may be good business for a newspaper or magazine, but it may not be the best goal for an entertainment content provider.

When ESPN was still growing, yes, they had some content rights but the over-the-air broadcasters still controlled most of the bell cows of sports entertainment. They put their stake down on high quality journalism and Sportscenter became the gold standard for the whole industry. I'd argue that with a detailed study of ESPN's reporting habits (first-of-it's-kind investigative reports, breaking stories, etc) has a strong correlation with their growth in broadcasting rights with major players in American sports. Correlation doesn't always mean causation but I think a strong case could be made that my theorized correlation has a true causation.

You can even see their contract rights affecting their coverage of issues like the NBA and NHL lockouts over the last two years. Hockey is almost nonexistent on the ESPN networks since they ended their live game coverage of the sport. Still, the NBA lockout was a major talking point nearly every day until it's resolution. I think it would be fair to suggest that ESPN pushed the narrative on that dispute to encourage reconciliation because they had a stake in the broadcast of the games. No surprise, they reached agreement just in time for ABC's major Christmas Day marathon of NBA basketball. The NHL was not so lucky, their dispute dragged on to the point that it will almost be the NBA ASG and NCAAB tourney season before they get into swing.

ESPN is fat and has their tentacles wrapped around too much in the industry to be reliable news source. I mean, deadspin is breaking more stories than ESPN these days and this is one of the first times ESPN correctly cited deadspin on a story. Before ESPN would simple say they had "sources"...and the sources being "they just read the deadspin report."
 

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