Manti T'eo, Heisman finalist and Notre Dame star, has an imaginary dead girlfriend

Opty

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This story is equally twisted and fascinating.

For all who are not fans of American college football, Manti T'eo is a star linebacker for Notre Dame and runner up for this year's Heisman Trophy. He was one of this year's top two names in college football.

The sports media reported ad nauseam all season about his difficult childhood, his feelings of being an outcast as a devout Mormon at a Catholic school, his great love for his girlfriend Kekua that he met in person outside the locker room after the Stanford game (or was it a virtual introduction on Twitter days later?), the horrific car accident that nearly took his girlfriend's life (that there's no record of), the tragic death of his grandmother, and the even more gut-wrenching death of his beloved girlfriend from a sudden bout of leukemia later that same day which was also shortly after she somehow found time to graduate from Stanford.

Or was it before his grandmother died? Or was it the next day? Or a few days later? Whatever the case, he somehow heroically mustered the super-human strength to persevere and lead his team to victory, even with his world crumbling around him.

Some believe that his rise to national prominence had as much to do with the emotive impact of his heart wrenching personal story as it did his actual talent and on-field performance.

Emotional stories of triumphing over personal tragedy and adversity is like manna from heaven for the sports media (and media in general) and T'eo's story had ESPN and the like salivating at each juicy morsel his life seemed to dish up this year. Which kept his name in people's minds, including Heisman voters, as his story tugged at the heart strings and begged for people to emotional anchor themselves to T'eo and his tragic, almost Shakespearean, narrative.

Apparently, though, it was all a hoax. His girlfriend never existed. He made her up. This story will only get stranger from here.
Manti Te'o did lose his grandmother this past fall. Annette Santiago died on Sept. 11, 2012, at the age of 72, according to Social Security Administration records in Nexis. But there is no SSA record there of the death of Lennay Marie Kekua, that day or any other. Her passing, recounted so many times in the national media, produces no obituary or funeral announcement in Nexis, and no mention in the Stanford student newspaper.

Nor is there any report of a severe auto accident involving a Lennay Kekua. Background checks turn up nothing. The Stanford registrar's office has no record that a Lennay Kekua ever enrolled. There is no record of her birth in the news. Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there's no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

The photographs identified as Kekua—in online tributes and on TV news reports—are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua. She is not a Stanford graduate; she has not been in a severe car accident; and she does not have leukemia. And she has never met Manti Te'o.

http://deadspin.com/5976517/manti-t...source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
 
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alleycat

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Great news. Oprah will now have someone to book next month.
 

blacbird

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The Notre Dame Athletic Director is saying this is all a hoax played on T'eo over the Internet. We'll see, I guess, though it's hard to figure out why he would invent all this crap on his own. He was the star player on the undefeated (until the title game) most storied college football program in the nation. What on Earth would be the point of doing that?

caw
 

Opty

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I don't buy that he wasn't complicit. He told people that he met her in person at the Stanford game, that they hung out multiple times when they supposedly both were in Hawaii, etc. now, he's claiming that they met online and never in person, etc. he cant seem to get his story straight. Also, some of the other stuff that Deadspin dug up regarding the Twitter accounts, his friend who running them, etc., casts even more doubt - at least, to me - on his and others' claims of his innocence.

Dude's got issues.
 

little_e

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Maybe it just started as an innocent story that spun out of control and then he had to find some way to cover it up since folks would eventually realize that she wasn't real, and didn't realize that they'd notice the lack of an actual dead person.
 

Torgo

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She looks exactly like the girlfriend I had in Canada when I was 14. You know, the one I met on my holidays and totally got off with.
 

cornflake

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The Notre Dame Athletic Director is saying this is all a hoax played on T'eo over the Internet. We'll see, I guess, though it's hard to figure out why he would invent all this crap on his own. He was the star player on the undefeated (until the title game) most storied college football program in the nation. What on Earth would be the point of doing that?

caw

Publicity? Adulation? Sympathy? Actual girls?

Remember, if someone has mental issues (I'm not saying he does, I have no idea), the reasoning behind their actions will not necessarily match up with the reasoning someone without any issues would have/view as reasonable.
 

J.S.F.

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Some say he made it all up, and others say it was a hoax perpetrated on an innocent victim.

After reading the details, I just realized that's five minutes of my life I'll never get back.
 

backslashbaby

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Strange, strange story.

My best female friend through high school and into college was a pathological liar, so I do wonder if that's what's up here. I felt sorry for her on that odd quirk of her personality, but it turned out she has antisocial personality disorder and just enjoyed constant manipulation for amusement. It can get way stranger with people, in other words.

He is competitive and enjoys the limelight, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's not exactly a good egg, given this strange incident. Maybe he's like my old friend. Or maybe he's just troubled. I'd certainly steer clear, whichever! No drama queens for me, period ;)
 

Torgo

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NEWS FLASH!! Torgo had illegal underage sex with Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend!

Are you calling me some kind of creep?

tJSWY.jpg
 

kenthepen

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Didn't intend to... you said you were underage, too... it was pre-necrophiliac, wasn't it?
 

Torgo

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Didn't intend to... you said you were underage, too... it was pre-necrophiliac, wasn't it?

Look, whatever me and the Master and Rex the Devil-Dog got up to back then, it was all mostly consensual. These days I'm a respectable publishing professional, and the Master is running the American Family Association.
 

PorterStarrByrd

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Wow .. lots more here on this thread deadspin should be checking out . Unfortunately, it looks like they stumbled in real story here without having to invent aliens or anything, or maybe Teo's girlfriend IS an alien.
 

kenthepen

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So which is it?

I think, therefore I make out?

Or

I think, therefore I make up stuff?
 

robeiae

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More: http://espn.go.com/college-football...ry-manti-teo-girlfriend-death-apparently-hoax


Reagan Mauia, an Arizona Cardinals fullback, said he believes Kekua existed because he met her in person when he and other Polynesian teammates and Pittsburgh Steelers star Troy Polamalu went to do charity work in American Samoa in June 2011.

"This was before her and Manti," Mauia said Wednesday evening. "I don't think Manti was even in the picture, but she and I became good friends. We would talk off and on, just checking up on each other kind of thing. I am close to her family. When she was going through the loss of her father, I was -- I offered a comforting shoulder and just someone to bounce her emotions off. That was just from meeting her in Samoa."

Mauia said Tuiasosopo -- whom Mauia believes is Kekua's cousin -- introduced the two. After the initial meeting, Mauia said he met her at an "after-party" for all of the athletes involved in the camp.

"She was tall," he said. "Volleyball-type of physique. She was athletic, tall, beautiful. Long hair. Polynesian. She looked like a model ... "

I'm pretty sure this was a Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode. Somebody call Goren.