The tale of Manti Te'o playing through a heavy heart over the passing of his girlfriend during the season has been turned upside down by a baffling, bombshell story from Deadspin.
The passing of Lennay Kekua's death after a battle with leukemia in September, just after Te'o's grandmother died, and how the Notre Dame linebacker played through the heartbreak just a few days later against Michigan State became one of the biggest college football stories of the season. It's one of the reasons Te'o, a Heisman Trophy finalist who led Notre Dame to an undefeated season, became a huge star over fall of 2012.
Deadspin said it's all a hoax. The story says that Lennay Kekua is entirely made up. The pictures of her are another woman's Facebook pictures, a woman who has never met Te'o. Deadspin said it could not find any online evidence she existed, outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts. Even though Kekua was said to be a student at Stanford, the university has no record of her. From what Deadspin's story tells us, the entire thing with Te'o and his deceased girlfriend - which was played up during the season to mythical proportions, including on a cover story in Sports Illustrated - never happened.
Te'o, through a statement by Notre Dame, said he was the victim of this hoax.
This was the statement from Notre Dame's Facebook page:
Notre Dame Statement: Manti Te’o
On Dec. 26, Notre Dame coaches were informed by Manti Te’o and his parents that Manti had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia. The University immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax. While the proper authorities will continue to investigate this troubling matter, this appears to be, at a minimum, a sad and very cruel deception to entertain its perpetrators.
Dennis Brown
University Spokesman | Assistant Vice President
If this was a hoax and Te'o was simply a victim, it was elaborate and he fell hook, line and sinker for it.
Here's an example of Te'o's comments about Lennay Kekua during the season, from the Tulsa World:
"My girlfriend's service was the day of Michigan's game," he said recently. "I knew when they were going to close the casket and all of that stuff, and it was during walk-through. I remember I asked Coach (Bob) Diaco, 'Coach what time is it?' And he said, 'It's 12:01.'
"That would be 9:01 California time and nine o'clock is when they closed the casket for my girlfriend. So I had a moment then."
It's a heck of a thing to read again after the Deadspin revelations.
Until Te'o provides specific details of how he was taken by this hoax, and how he believed he had a girlfriend who never existed and then mourned her death with his teammates and Notre Dame fans supporting him, the circumstances will remain a bit confusing. The relationship apparently began on Twitter, according to Deadspin. Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a classmate of the woman whose Facebook photos were passed off as Kekua, knew Te'o, and was said in the story to have "created" Kekua. The Deadspin story doesn't explain, for example, how Te'o believed he was talking to Kekua every night until they fell asleep on the phone, as was told in an ESPN.com story.
This is without question one of the strangest stories in a long time. It's certainly not a good look for Te'o, who spent 2012 as one of the most beloved figures in college football, at least until he fully explains all of the details about what happened.
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