Thamel gives his account of interviewing Te'o in the wake of his double tragedy in September. Te'o seems to waver between knowing his girlfriend in great detail to being quite fuzzy on other details of their "courtship". I will say this, if he was duped, he comes across as quite naive in this interview and doesn't realize how incredibly ridiculous the tale he's telling really is. Reading this also gives me pause to believe he was in on the hoax, kind of.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130117/manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax-quotes/
I believe Teo was in on it, but just to play devils advocate, could he have been uncertain and undecisive because he didnt want people to know he never actually met her like he says in his defense?
I truly think he was duped at first, but then either because of embarrassment or him seeing an opportunity to use this for his benefit, decided to continue on with the charade.
Either way he looks like an idiot.
I would agree. From reading Thamel's interview it sure sounds like there was something to this "relationship". But now I would like to know when he actually knew he had been duped. His timeline of events in all of this has been hazy at best.
Agree Tenn.....the key for those who are in the duped camp, is when did he know that she wasnt real. I also question as to why he would continue and make this public if that date was before her fake death? Who wpuld have ever known of this if he hadnt made it public....
From the different stories out today, it looks like he didn't know(he claims) until sometime in early Dec when he received phone calls from what was supposed to be her number.
I thought I had read that somewhere.
I also read in interviews after that time in early December he talked about how his GF died of cancer in interviews about the Heisman and NCG.
Yeah, hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but the story Te'o tells in this interview is pretty unbelievable. And you know who agrees with me on that? Pete Thamel (quote from Thamel during the interview: "This is unbelievable.") She was an international traveler, a teacher, AND an executive of some sort at a construction company before the age of 22? She "died" and was revived twice before she died for real, only hours after being well enough to send multiple texts about the death of Te'o's grandmother? Does Thamel regularly correspond with the daughters of Nigerian presidents too?
I have to think if someone at SI had ever read this entire transcript ahead of time, someone who never met Te'o and could thus be more objective and less blinded by the notion that the successor to the Gipper and Rudy was walking among us, they might have been able to call attention to the fact that their reporter had been buried under the world's tallest pile of bullshit.
The most "loud mouth, disrespect" poster on 11W.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8854472/teammate-manti-te...
New article by Jeremy Schaap:
"After Deadspin.com broke the hoax story, however, multiple media reports have said players thought that Te'o had only met Lennay Kekua once and that it wasn't really accurate to call her his girlfriend. But as condolences poured in, Te'o "played along," according to the teammate, who wished to remain anonymous.
The teammate portrayed the move as part of the All-American's personality, telling ESPN that Te'o liked attention so much that he would sometimes point himself out to friends when he was on television."
Also, the article describes a fund raised by students in the name of the "girlfriend" after the Alabama loss. ND sent a videographer and posted an interview on its website. This occured several weeks after, based on their own acknowledgement, they were aware she did not exist.
That's some insane detail, and possibly a ridiculously dedicated "catfish" if Manti truly was duped.
Yeah. He was duped. Sure thing.
I also liked the incredible medical detail combined with the "English and SOmething" response for her major. The farce is strong with this one.