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Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax: Reserve judgment until everything comes out

He stood there in front of me in South Bend, Ind., with tears in his eyes. He spoke of her and had to compose himself, had to choke down a heaving chest and weeping.

Now it’s all a hoax.

Manti Te'o lying about a girlfriend just doesn't make sense, Matt Hayes writes. (AP Photo)

No dead girlfriend, no tear-jerking, feel-good story of an All-American linebacker at Notre Dame. Just question after question after question.

Manti Te’o is either a victim, a liar, a conspirator or a confused man. And none of them make any sense.

If Te’o truly is a victim of a hoax—as he and Notre Dame claim—his story doesn’t add up. If Te’o truly is a liar and a conspirator—as the exhaustive reporting from suggests—the obvious question is: Why?

Te'o's statement: I was the victim of a hoax

Why lie about a girlfriend? Why, as a red-blooded superstar linebacker with the world as your oyster, do you lie about something as simple—yet eventually, so complex—as a relationship?

This, more than anything, is why this story needs to play out. This, more than anything, is why this story is far from complete.

The inclination in this media climate is to meticulously criticize or joke about a fallen star (I’m a card-carrying member); to wonder aloud about explanations; to offer up answers.

Yet here’s a question we all must ask ourselves: What if it’s not that easy?

This much we know: It’s not possible that Te’o is that naïve and that gullible and that lonely and that far from his home in Hawaii that he had an online relationship (see: superstar linebacker gets what he wants).

Tangled web: Report spells out details of hoax, inconsistencies

I’ve been in this business for more than two decades, and it gets harder and harder to decipher fake from genuine; to find what’s behind the mask.

Te’o, and his love for his grandmother and “girlfriend,” his passion for football and the camaraderie of his teammates, was about as real as could be. To be that completely invested in a scam; to be so full of emotion and tears that you fall into your parent’s arms after a game, something has to be driving those emotions.

Who is this longtime “friend” that allegedly helped concoct the hoax? Too many questions, not enough answers. If we’ve learned anything over the last few years of the unthinkable in sport, it’s that we can’t overreact and simplify things.

Draft stock dropping? Longtime NFL exec weighs in

There are too many questions in every unseemly story. Too many unknowns, and too much uncertainty.

We’re all to blame. We put Manti Te’o on a pedestal, and praised a man none of us really knew.

Turns out he’s just as flawed as all of us.

That’s the real hoax.


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