Thursday, January 17, 2013

The football player's virtual girlfriend

Manti Te'o had girlfriend that died of cancer. Only she never existed. Now the college football world is suddenly awash with plenty of stories covering this bizarre revelation. Well, what else are they going to write about today? You have Oregon's coach bolting for the NFL and San Diego State putting the nail in the Big East's coffin. But none of those have the drama of a media-induced "fake scandal".

Way back early in September, Manti Te'o lost his grandmother. He also found out that a female friend had also died around the same time. He went on to play the game of his life that day, and put himself on the shortlist for the Heisman trophy.

As the initial story was breaking my impression was that she was just a friend. She was somebody he would talk to and felt close to. It didn't appear that he was a "girlfriend". After all, they were on opposite sides of the country. Later, she turned in to a "girlfriend" and he was portrayed as being noble for staying with her even as she was hospitalized.

Why did she suddenly become a "girlfriend"? If we take the "innocent Manti" route, he initially told people that a friend died. The media start to report and ask questions. They here about female friend and string it together as "girlfriend". The poor guy says sure, she was my girlfriend. No point in denying a relationship for somebody that is now dead. He had lots of deep conversations with her. Even if they weren't a "couple", saying that he was a girlfriend helps show respect to her and her family. The media go and ask a few other people what they feel and they get some people to say what they want to hear. Now we get a great story about a guy's girlfriend dying. He gets caught up in it. After all, his grandmother did really die. The grief is there. And as far as he knows, a girl he was close to also died.

However, this close girl was only a virtual friend, somebody met online and over the phone. You can have a close online relationship. However, online relationships are still stigmatized. Terminology would be used that could be interpreted either way. You still "meet" somebody online. You still talk to them. He may have really thought he was meeting her in person. He thought he saw her up in a crowd at a game. They planned on meeting in Hawaii or someplace, but a flight was delayed or something just didn't work out. It could still be a "meeting" even though only one side saw it, right?

Even in later discussions, Te'o's speech was fairly guarded. There was not a lot of talk about seeing her in person. He was a special woman that inspired him, but there is not much talk of holding her hand or a personal relationship.

How were we to know she was a fake? Well, first off, there was zilcho reporting of her from the Stanford side. I remember looking around the Stanford newspaper shortly after the story broke. A student or recent grad getting in a car crash and dying of cancer would probably make the student paper. However, there was nothing. In fact, a google search came up with pretty much nothing more than the Te'o stuff. In retrospect that was a red flag. However, then, it could just be somebody that wants privacy.

As for Te'o learning that she was a fake and sitting on it? Well, just look at the press coverage now. Wouldn't you be embarrassed to find that out? You don't want that type of distraction when you are receiving rewards or preparing for the championship game. I imagine he initially must have been in denial. It took some time before he want to the school. However, he waited, and hoped that it would go away. He wanted to get a good spin on it first before going public. Alas, somebody beat him to it. It may have been somebody connected with the hoax. (After all, they tried to fess up to him, maybe they just had to get it out elsewhere.) More likely, it was somebody tangentially connected. Somebody may have heard something. Or somebody may have seen some snooping around. They thought there was something there, and wanted to find out more.

Te'o eventually played a sub-par game in the national championship and Notre Dame lost. Could this distraction have led to the problem? Perhaps it was a plot by Alabama fans all along. They inspire him to do well enough to get Notre Dame to the championship, then let him know at the end so that 'bama can easily roll to victory.

Baring Alabama conspiracy theories, we still have the the "why?" question. Perhaps this did start out as an innocent online relationship. The girl used a fake name in order to protect herself. She wanted to ingratiate herself with a famous football player. She saw things going too far, so she had herself injured in a car crash. However, she missed her time with him, so she had herself recover, but gave herself leukaemia so that she could kill herself off later if she got tired of the relationship. She saw that Te'os grandmother died and that it would be a dramatic time to kill herself off ending the relationship. She loved the publicity, but saw that people were snooping, so she deleted her accounts. She saw that Te'o was doing well, so kept quiet. Then, when he was getting the rewards, she just couldn't hold on any longer and wanted back in his life. But she was dead, so she had to come things. And that is where things started to unravel.

And until they come clean, there will be many other possible explanations.

Was there any crime committed? Possibly. Fake identity. Defrauding. I'm sure politicians will love to pass the Manti Te'o act to protect people from "catfishing". However, an assumed name and fake events are quite common on the Internet. A faked death? A little more rare. But if you want to end a relationship, that is the way to go. Did they do that to get gain? Well, there doesn't seem to be much gain on Manti's side. Perhaps the girl got some flowers or money. Or perhaps she was after some wealth when he became a star. (Maybe she did it thinking that he would go pro after his junior year, but thought she couldn't pull it off all the way through the senior season.)

As for Te'o himself, there is not a whole lot that could have been gained if he had fabricated it all himself. It would have made his story a little less dramatic. However, the performance after a grandmother's death was still had a lot to it. It would stand to cause a degree of embarrassment if it came out. It is hard to see much rationale for him to make it up. However, once the press started latching on to it, things could be different.

The moral: Don't believe what you see written in the media - especially if it is written about you

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