Is Te’o telling the truth? Who knows…

Published 10:00 pm Saturday, January 19, 2013

By Shane Stark

 

 

 

Do you believe Manti Te’o?

Or do you consider him a Lyin’ Hawaiian?

On Friday night, the Notre Dame linebacker spoke to the media for the first time since the Lennay Kekua scandal surfaced. And in an interview with ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap, the Heisman Trophy finalist denied having involvement in the creation of the dead girlfriend/resurrection hoax.



“No. Never,” Te’o said during a 2ﾽ-hour, off-camera interview. “I wasn’t faking it. I wasn’t part of this.”

Te’o, who said he found out that Kekua didn’t actually exist a few days ago, said that two guys and a girl were involved in the hoax. The only one he could identify was Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who Te’o said admitted to creating the whole quandary.

At first I leaned on the side of Te’o being involved and not the prey of an online catfishing hoax. Now I stand in the middle when it comes to the issue, but still have many doubts about whether Te’o is telling the truth.

The thing we should be waiting for are comments from Tuiasosopo and for the girl — whoever she happens to be — to surface and take responsibility. Until then we have to remain cautious about whether any girl ever existed, about whether Te’o actually spent hours on the phone with her.

One thing that still makes very little sense is that Te’o continued to speak about “Kekua” in the past tense in the immediate days after finding out she hadn’t died (according to Te’o, the girl claiming to be Kekua called him on Dec. 6 and claimed to have faked her death because of threats from drug dealer; but during the Dec. 8 Heisman Trophy ceremony Te’o still spoke of her as having died).

In Te’o’s account of the Dec. 6 phone call from the person claiming to be Kekua: “I said you have to tell me now, because if you don’t tell me now, I’m still going to think about it,” Te’o said. “… She said, well, Manti, it’s me. That’s all she said. And I played stupid for a little bit. I was like, ‘Oh, I know it’s you, U’ilani (Kekua’s purported sister). What do you mean?’ And she’s like, ‘No, Manti, it’s me.’

“She said, ‘It’s Lennay. So we carried on that conversation, and I just got mad. I just went on a rampage. ‘How could you do this to me?’ I ended that conversation by saying simply this: ‘You know what? Lennay, my Lennay, died on Sept. 12.'”

Whether that conversation, and the hours and hours of others, actually took place remains to be seen. And following the Super Bowl the NFL will be gearing up for this spring’s draft, meaning the Lennay Kekua scandal should continue to dominate the news because of Te’o being a possible high-round selection.

And until Tuiasosopo and the girl claiming to be Kekua come forward, we should still have our doubts about whether Te’o is telling the truth. But not yet knowing the answer to that is what helps make this bizarre saga all the more intriguing.

What do you think? Is Manti Te’o telling the truth? Send your responses to sports@tylerpaper.com or find ETFinalScore.com on Facebook and Twitter.