Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey with an awesome bit of investigative reporting for Deadspin about the inspiring story of Manti Te’o’s personal tragedies - a story that now appears to be an elaborate hoax:
But that’s where the definite ends. From here, the rest of Te’o’s public story begins to grade into fantasy, in the tradition of so much of Notre Dame’s mythmaking and with the help of a compliant press.
Assembling a timeline of the Kekua-Te’o relationship is difficult. As Te’o’s celebrity swelled, so did the pile of inspirational stories about his triumph over loss. Each ensuing story seemed to add yet another wrinkle to the narrative, and details ran athwart one another. Here is the general shape of things, based on occasionally contradictory media accounts:
Te’o has since released a statement in which he claims to be the victim of the hoax. But as Burke and Dickey outline, Te’o previously claimed to meet the girlfriend in question and his father claimed they routinely spent time in Hawaii. In addition, Te’o once told a reporter that her family didn’t wish to be contacted when asked it was okay to reach out for comment.
Don’t over think this. The evidence is pretty damning thanks to the work by Burke and Dickey - damning to both Te’o and to media outlets like EPSN. If it looks like a fake duck …
note: the title was shamelessly stolen from the comments section in the Deadspin article.