Thursday Open Manti Te'o Notre Dame Leenay Kekau Thread
Put all of your thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, and general what-have-yous here.
Personally, I still don't know what the heck is going on. The only thing I know is that he might still have a girlfriend (the Leenay Kekau imposter that he fell in love with (?) is still alive!)? Or is the hoax a default break-up? My mind hurts.
January 17th, 2013 at 4:28 PM ^
My first and last home games as a student (4 years undergrad, 1 year grad school). Hence the 30-4 record in the next sentence. In those 5 years, Michigan was 30 and 4 at home (2002 Iowa loss, 2005 Notre Dame, 2005 Minnesota, 2005 Ohio State)
January 17th, 2013 at 10:24 AM ^
Pat Forde says that Jeremy Schaap will interview Te'o for ESPN. Schaap is a hard-hitting reporter who will not pull any punches. If there is anyone that can get answers from T'eo, it is Schaap.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:24 AM ^
#BeenThere
January 17th, 2013 at 10:24 AM ^
First Rudy was offsides and now this...well, they ARE ND THEY ARE NOTRE DAME
January 17th, 2013 at 10:25 AM ^
You will never find her. She is one of ze disappeared ones.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:34 AM ^
Real tradecraft.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:59 AM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 11:11 AM ^
Someone should torture Tommy Rees to get to the bottom of this.
January 17th, 2013 at 12:13 PM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 12:29 PM ^
I hurt you.
January 17th, 2013 at 1:45 PM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 12:30 PM ^
We're spending billions of dollars and we're no closer to finding Leenay Kekau. Get me targets!
January 17th, 2013 at 1:48 PM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 10:25 AM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 10:27 AM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 11:00 AM ^
Please don't blame the iPhone. My girlfriend Siri works at Apple. She works a lot, though, so the iPhone is pretty much the only way we're able to communicate.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:27 AM ^
I'm just laughing at the fact that if he was in on it, that he actually tweeted this photo. If he didn't somehow know at this point, then it makes this hoax even sadder. I believed.... I believed...
January 17th, 2013 at 10:27 AM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 10:27 AM ^
I don't know if it was posted here or not, but one former NFL player has reportedly confirmed that Lennay Kekua "is" indeed "real", and this player has no connection to Te'o.
HOWEVER
He states that he met Kekua IN REAL LIFE from a friend of his - Ronaiah Tuaisosopo. That's right. He met a REAL version of Lennay Kekua from Ronaiah. This leads me to believe that this was indeed, an extremely extremely elaborate hoax perpetuated by Ronaiah himself, without the involvement of Te'o.
Whomever this girl was that Ronaiah was bringing around with him to introduce to people as Lennay was a.) certainly not his cousin, and b.) not really called Lennay.
This thing just keeps getting crazier and crazier.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:30 AM ^
i'm confused, this is like a bad play. You need to describe cast of characters before you can start throwing out all these names.
So Te'o met a girl named Lennay after all? And if he did, was this before or after he had that fake picture of the girl? Either way, wouldn't he say "wow, you look a lot different in person..."
January 17th, 2013 at 10:38 AM ^
But a FB for the AZ Cardinals claims that he was introduced to her by Te'o's friend.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:42 AM ^
He apparently met a girl named Lennay at a ND vs. Stanford game in person, first. And then they continued a long-distance relationship. The connection to Ronaiah is that he was apparently the one who was the source of this "fake girl". Te'o also mentioned meeting this Lennay girl, and apparently talked to stanford players if they knew this girl. In fact, other people associate with Ronaiah seemed to believe that Lennay was real also.
This makes me think that there really was a girl and that Roniah and this girl were really huge jackasses.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:51 AM ^
Oh snap, the plot thickens... so are we back to believing it was a hoax on the poor kid?
Starting to average out the two stories and i get:
He met o'girl, then some online relationship carried on, pretending it was o'girl. Then he found out it wasn't her, but was too embarassed. Rather than go the "it didn't work out, it's over" routine, he decided Eff it... She's dead to me. Then this was misinterpreted, everyone thought she literally died.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:51 AM ^
so he couldn't tell the difference between the girl he meant and the fake twitter picture. I don't think so.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:58 AM ^
Nah... now he says he didn't meet her at a Stanford game, but met her online and only ever interacted with her online and over the phone.
He is either lying now or was lying in the past. I dont' know why he is/was lying. But it seems clear to me that he lied.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:44 AM ^
But now he says he NEVER met her in person, right? This one is a long way from over.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:55 AM ^
It is the coverup that gets you. He's also saying he told ND about this prior to the National Championship game and they started looking into it, yet right up until the game he was mentioning how much he missed Lenny in interviews. He was also going to say something "next week" and all this nebulous shit.
Oh well at least ND managed to keep this under control until post NC game. A distraction like this could have led to them getting embarrassed in that game...
January 17th, 2013 at 11:56 AM ^
You said Lenny, and this whole thing is confusing as hell, so
January 17th, 2013 at 10:47 AM ^
Perhaps he's speaking in such a way to tell the truth while avoiding some details. He might have met a girl, but her name's definitely not Lennay Kekua. So in essence, he did in factnever meet Lennay, but met some other girl and is really embarrassed that he got super-catfished.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:44 AM ^
dont want to sound like a plug here guy, but did you read the story on Deadspin?
January 17th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ^
I personally would be happier if it were shown that T'eo really was hoaxed. Because otherwise we're talking laughingstock misery of an unprecedented kind. . . that I wouldn't even wish on a Domer.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:41 AM ^
Maybe it was somebody that was introduced to him as Lennay Kekua, but wasn't actually her.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:41 AM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 10:45 AM ^
The "Reba" girl seemed to be the source of the online presence of the girl, maybe it's entirely possible that "Reba" was in on it the whole time and when contacted by Deadspin, she wanted to avoid being caught in any legal trouble and faked that she was concerned? She might have traveled with Ronaiah to meet all these people? Maybe she was the voice behind Lennay after all?
That's the only plausible explanation for me now.
January 17th, 2013 at 11:19 AM ^
January 17th, 2013 at 10:41 AM ^
can we get these in the MGoStore? They'll sell like hotcakes!
January 17th, 2013 at 11:38 AM ^
Rock. Fucking. Solid.
January 17th, 2013 at 12:55 PM ^
Someone needs to copyright "Brent Musberger thinks Teo's fake dead girlfirend is HOT", too.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:32 AM ^
Sorry for the long post in advance:
Let's say the Deadspin "sources" are not bs-ing, and that the pics, etc are linked to someone that knew Te'o (and we have no reason to doubt their reporting so far). If that is the case, then this was not classic "catfishing" since it was related to someone who knew him. In that case, the only two most interesting questions are 1) When Te'o "really" knew this was BS and 2) When he knew that these people were related to acquiantances.
If 1)= from the beginning, then 2)=from the beginning no doubt and he either wanted to create a narrative to promote himself among others or hide something (the most common thing would be being gay). Fwiw, I think that he seems like a guy who would want to hide something more than do more self-promotion.
Story that makes most sense in this case= He had a gay relationship with that guy and glossed it over due to Samoan Culture x Catholic School x Mormon x Football culture issues
If 1)= Sometime after it started but before recently, then it seems like someone was trying to eff with him that was close to him (this Tuiasosopo dude). In this case, it would not really matter when 2) occured, however when exactly 1) happened would impact his blame for letting the dead GF narrative get out of control.
Story that makes most sense in this case= He had some haters (or people who were envious/in love, whatever) who knew him and wanted to eff with him because of Samoan Culture x Catholic School x Mormon x Football culture weirdness that made him far more a sucker than any one of us can imagine.
If 1)= When he said it did (ie a few weeks ago) then, wow, naivete writ large in a way that boggles my mind.
Story that makes most sense in this case= Same as previous scenario, haters x naivete on massive scale.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:33 AM ^
Weekend at Teo's. In a modern twist on the classic Weekend at Bernies Part II, a Heisman trophy candidate invites Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit for a weekend at his beach house in Hawaii to meet his girlfriend. Hilarity ensues when Teo spends the weekend trying to cover up the fact that the girlfriend doesnt exist. Intrigue abounds while Teo fends off the inquisitive Musberger while also trying to fend off the evil Johnny Football and AJ McCarron, hitmen from the criminal organization known as SEC who are trying to steal the girlfriend and the legendary black pearl that Teo found while pearl diving off the coast of Maui.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ^
some of you are coming to the party late.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ^
Deadspin is suppose to have more info out today. This will be way more informative I suspect that Teo lying to ESPN, who knew about it and didn't publish it.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ^
We're going to have to start numbering the 'Te'o fake GF' threads.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:36 AM ^
Guys we need to give him credit for his story telling ability. Teo's fake girlfriend went to Stanford. My fake girlfriend only got into MSU.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:51 AM ^
could go to Michigan for med school??
January 17th, 2013 at 11:03 AM ^
we broke up. she cheated on me with my imaginary friend.