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The South Bend Tribune article has been removed (without a note or anything), but I got the impression that it was supposed to have occurred when Te'o was at home with his parents in Hawaii.
edit: I think this is a direct quote: "They started out as just friends. She would travel to Hawaii (when) Manti was home, so he would meet with her there."
I think this article tackles this point quite well.
And like any father of a college kid, he was just passing along information his son gave him as that's all he had to go on. I have doubts that Manti is completely innocent but Brian almost certainly is.
Well, according to the South Bend Tribune, after Kakua was released from the hospital after her car crash, Te'o's father congratulated her on the phone. Of course, that may have been part of the hoax.
Te'o played like #### in the BCS final too, likely because he knew his (likely) fraud was about to blow. (I use the word "fraud," loosely there since Teo really did nothing wrong, other than dupe a gullible university, media, and public that should have known better.)
That's what she said.
Or at least would have if she existed.
This is perhaps more evidence for my theory that his next move will be to confess his involvement in this. So it's back to the drawing board to figure that out.
He simply cannot continue down this road. His story is not believable. His story is not believed.
Well, I've known who Manti Te'o was for several months now, but I just learned yesterday that he had a dead girlfriend. Which brings up the question: Why should anyone have spent a lot of time digging into this stuff? It's gossip about a college football player's personal life. I'm sure it was a big deal in South Bend, but I don't think a lot of other people cared that much.
So why should news organizations have spent a lot of time and effort investigating this? Should they have demanded to see the death certificate for Te'o's grandmother as well?
I completely agree with you re the bizarre need in our society to pump these athletes up as great Men simply because they are good at playing a sport. It's not enough that they are good players; they are deemed to have good character because they are good players.
And so we get a situation where the guy says his girlfriend and his grandmother died within 6 hours of each other and yet he played the game anyway - and his story is swallowed whole. Because the media laps those kinds of stories up, uncritically.
Sure, but who really cares? No crime has been committed. It's a just a weird story that makes Notre Dame, Te'o and Notre Dame look pretty stupid and will be quickly forgotten. Why does anyone NEED to do anything about this?
Apparently it was the subject of a lot of national coverage. I don't follow Notre Dame football other than to despise it, so I was not aware of the story, but apparently it was a big, big story all season.
Most obviously, NFL teams need to decide if they are going to spend a first round draft pick on this guy and have him as the face of the franchise or not.
The answer, to me, is simple. They shouldn't have spent any time on it in the first place, but once they did, then, yes, they should absolutely have checked out the story.
He was doing interviews for segments on ESPN and on Charlie Rose's show. He was doing print interviews. They were doing many stories on this. And I don't watch college football but I have to believe -- judging from the silliness of the Ray Lewis Worship that is currently being practiced by the tv networks for the NFL games -- that this was discussed during the broadcasts, that everyone in the viewing audience had to be put through this nonsense about him having a dead girlfriend but choosing to play a game instead of going to her funeral.
Once they made the decision to cover it, they should damned well have investigated it.
What? My exact prediction coming true is evidence for your theory? Huh.
Anyway, I'm sticking with the Shredder/Moses/Tom N. camp. There IS a cohesive narrative to be spun that has Te'o being the patsy in all this - as long as you don't look too closely - but does require his participation in building the myth of the gf - Shredder has laid it out well. I'm sticking to my guns - further answers will not be forthcoming. It's his ONLY way out. 'I'm just staying focused on the combine/draft/OTAs/preseason/Week 1/etc.' until he stops getting asked.
[1945] I don't understand the derision at the thought of Terrelle Pryor.
Crispix, this must be for me since I was the only one who addressed STEAGLES' mention of Pryor - clearly you know more than I do. I knew basically zero about him before he got to Oakland, and you're right that I'm probably giving the Raiders too much credit for talent evaluation to dismiss him so quickly. I sort of just figured the bloom had pretty much worn off - and I certainly haven't heard much about him that's been positive in a long, long time.
EDIT: Okay, AGAIN on the ESPN thing - it seems blindingly obvious to me that ESPN (or anyone else) shouldn't be reporting 'this whole story is fishy and inconsistent but we can't say much else about it! film at 11' and that Deadspin did the technical work of untangling the photos, found Reba, and that - and only that - was enough for them to run with the story. I'm not defending either organization, but I think some of you are too quick to rush to judgment against both.
It was a big talking point about him, about how he nabbed 2 INTs on the day of her funeral in an upset win. Sports writers live for narrative and this was being served to them on a platter.
Good question, I don't know. There's this though:
That, doesn't make sense to me.
Pretty much everyone. This story has detonated within the past 20 hours. The story has many things, but lack of interest in it is not one of them.
That was probably the Bengals GM.
So why should news organizations have spent a lot of time and effort investigating this? Should they have demanded to see the death certificate for Te'o's grandmother as well?
Exactly. Since I follow college football, and he's a star senior at one of the nation's most prominent programs, I've known who he was for four seasons. I hadn't heard a thing though about this backstory (or if I did, just blew it off as meaningless fluff).
The gossip about his personal life is entirely trivial. It's a story only because there has to be stories. To repeat: There isn't an iota of substance to any of this. Not a shred. There's literally nothing there worth caring about. The idea that it's grown to involve lawyers and investigations and the Notre Dame administration and all sorts of rending of garments is simply laughable, and an embarrassing commentary about America in 2013.
Who is "they"? Charlie Rose? He's just an interviewer. Brent Musburger?
How many sportswriters have uncritically reported Hideki Matsui's porn stash without actually demanding to see it and confirming that he truly has 10,000 videos? When people tell you stuff about their personal life, you generally believe it, unless you have good reason not to.
Well, they did milk the story for all it worth, airing interviews and the like. Nobody thought to get the deceased's family on the record?
This is a question I've had. Will NFL teams care whether he's lying? Or do they just care how well he plays football? I don't follow this stuff so I have no idea.
Will he be drafted in the same slot, or will his stock fall a bit?
In contrast, the Jets will love him, and will probably have him higher on their board _because_ of this.
But that's the coin of the realm. Normal people lose a parent, they mourn and cope and get back to work in a week and are expected to be productive within a couple weeks. Tiger Woods's dad dies, the guy's a hero for even being able to muster the strength to make it to the first tee three months later.
I've heard Charlie Rose has producers who produce his segments. I've heard it's bad for these producers to run to air with bogus stories. I've heard he is able to give his producers some direction and instruction. I've heard he doesn't want to be made a fool out of by being the face of a bogus segment.
But journalists should have investigated it, yes. And apparently ESPN was investigating it. Why did it take Deadspin to do so?
?
Did you mean Falcons? I am still in my "refuse to look at them" phase with the Hawks, after that 5 point quarter in Chicago.
This.
This is probably the way the conversation went:
EDITOR: We should get some comment from this girl's family.
SPORTS REPORTER: I asked Manti for their contact info, but he asked me not to bother them.
A lot of people around here think the next step should have been:
EDITOR: He wants you not to contact them, eh? Well, maybe they.... DON'T EXIST! Let's get the investigative team on this! Get the phone records!
Instead, what he probably said was:
EDITOR: Well, screw it, it's not worth pissing off Manti. Did you set up the interview with Larry Bird's daughter?
Is there a distinction between "falling to the second round because you made up some #### about a fake dead girlfriend" and "falling to the second round because Eddie Lacy made you his ##### in national television?"
Here's one thought. Basically, he'll be subject to more interviews than a typical draft prospect.
And you think Charlie Rose's producers verify every personal anecdote his guests offer up? Before the interview even happens?
Normal people don't go back to work where any little mistake they make (because of lack of concentration) will be recorded and visible to millions of people for days/weeks/months/years after.
No, this leaves out too much. "Ok, well, just Google her to confirm from news reports that the basic story checks out. What? You didn't find any news reports of her death? Of a memorial service for her? Of her car accident? You couldn't verify from Stanford that she ever attended the school? You couldn't verify that she was ever born? You couldn't find any independent evidence that she exists? You couldn't find any evidence that her family exists? Oh, but Manti says not to bother her family? Well, screw it, it's not worth pissing off Manti!! Did you set up the interview with Larry Bird's daughter?"
Right ... normal people only go back to work where mistakes they make can get them fired, without tens of millions of dollars to fall back on.
Personal anecdote? This was a major portion of the segment. It was basically the reason why they did the segment.
The Bengals don't have a GM.
Bring on the I-Team!!!!
They did, but she died of leukemia in Hawaii last fall. It was really sad.
Well, a lot of people seem to think he made up some ### about a fake dead girlfriend, because somebody made him his bitch. So they are basically the same thing.
This won't work. He may refuse to ever address this to the media directly but he is going to have to explain this situation to the teams that are considering drafting him. After he does that, it will leak. Heck, super-boring Wonderlic scores get disclosed every season. There is no way that whatever he tells teams is not going to get leaked to the press.
What? Alfonso Dennard fell from a third-round pick to the seventh round because he was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.
That extra motivation would explain the Bengals' late-season surge, winning 7 of their final 8 games.
I hope this is satire.
It is not.
this is no different that folks who put on fake accomplishments on resumes. when discovered the penalties can be pretty severe including loss of employment.
this is in the same vein. he may have knowingly falsified life details for at minimum attention and at worse to accelerate his career
My point is that the media is always going to consider the best source of information on Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend to be Manti Te'o. And 99.99 percent of the time, that's going to be a pretty good assumption.
Except he didn't put a fake accomplishment on his resume.
We'll see. If he made all this up to play the silly media and system and help his Heisman chances, well, that's the kind of drive and ambition and smarts we want here at Sugarbearica Industries.
If that's really what happened, he should just cop to it, declare victory, and get out.
ted thompson would and does. he has stated numerous times that if his team finds that a player has lied they at minimum drop him several notches on the board and likely cross him off as long-term it's not worth the hassle.
he will take kids who get into trouble with drugs or the law because people make mistakes. he says people choose to lie and that's a huge red flag
I'm not following this story closely, but if she supposedly went to Stanford, but Stanford can't find her, that's an important concern right there. Not that people don't lie about such things, but it would have led to further research - and the truth.
Depending on which scenario you believe, the following things could materially impact his draft position:
- Te'o's mental stability (if he crafted the whole hoax)
- His level of confidence going forward (if this is fundamentally impacting his psyche now)
- His ability to play under intense pressure and derision (since opposing NFL fans will never let him forget this)
For sure, he'll be subjected to more rigorous interviews.
There is no doubt that this situation will give teams pause, and may drop him a bit. It won't outweigh his physical ability, but it's a factor. For sure, his performance in the National Championship Game will create more doubt than the Lennay Kekua fiasco.
This. Teams do their homework and know the answers to questions they ask red flag kids. They tell the truth and they pass. They lie and it's a black mark. Vontaze Burfict didn't get drafted because he was an idiot who in his combine interviews blamed his coaches and teammates for his poor play. Janoris Jenkins got drafted because he was honest.
This assumes that they'd even be searching/requesting using the correct name -- lots of people are enrolled under a formal name that's not terribly similar to how they are commonly addressed, particularly by a boyfriend. So then you'd have to further ask Te'o about his girlfriend's formal name, so you can... confirm she went to school? For what purpose?
So far, though, all he's done was build up and manage his brand.
I assume his district has an open seat?
I've wondered about this before, is this true? Aren't there privacy implications? And why do so many coaches think they can lie or 'fudge' their resumes and get away with it? Simply that people are dumb?
no. lazy. and it can be a pain if you contact an organization and nobody will bother responding
The University immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax. .
Note the purpose of the investigation. Not to help Notre Dame, the institution, fix things that needed fixing, or help it craft new ways of going about its business in light of events, but explicitly "to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax."
In other words, as suspected, they bought him lawyers and investigators to help him sort out his entirely personal dilemma.
So let's sum up:
Notre Dame pays legal fees for fancy lawyers to help player see whether his girlfriend really existed: No problem.
Booster gives a handful of players cut rate discount on tats: OH, THE HUMANITY!!!!
Yes, Mike Francesa made the same point on WFAN last night - mainly, that the media can't be criticized because 99% of the media would simply assume that Te'o is telling the truth. (Sorry to lump you in with him.) But all this is is a statement of what happens; it's not a justification for such.
He made the same argument with respect to Gronk breaking his arm the first time a few weeks ago, blocking on special teams even after the outcome of the game was not in doubt (if I'm recalling the circumstances of the injury correctly). A caller was like, umm, why the hell did it make sense for Gronk to be playing special teams with the game not in doubt. And Francesca's argument was "Hey, that's what all coaches do. They play their star players/qb's even when the game is not in doubt." Yes. AND? The question is whether that's smart, not whether all coaches do it.
Granted the additional part of your argument on Te'o is that 99.99% of the time, the media will be right in their assumptions. But, then, you pulled that statistic out of thin air.
And:
It would help if he's pre-law.
Yes. Nobody was demanding that the media find out where her family lives and go break down the door. It seems reasonable to accept Te'o's story AFTER some basic facts are independently confirmed. And you don't need to bother the family for that.
Tom seems to be saying there was no reason even to confirm any basic facts.
Also, "Te'o won't give us any photos of her or let us speak to her family, out of respect for their privacy and on their request." Fine. Perfectly reasonable. But this should prompt you again to do the basic fact checking. If it checks out, fine. But then when the basic fact checking fails, go back to Te'o and be like, ummm, what's the deal here. And THEN, yes, proceed to investigate just what in the hell is going on here.
When we are called about a former employee / contractor, all we are allowed to respond is that the person worked here and the dates. No rating, no response to rehire questions, nuttin else, just when they worked.
If I really like the ex-employee and I sense/know the opportunity is the one they are looking for, I usually let it slip to the would-be hirer that I would hire him/her back in a heartbeat.
I never said anything like that. If you're going to willfully misrepresent what I said, I have no interest in discussing this further.
Players get hurt blocking on ST once in a blue moon. And they need reps. The risk/reward seems pretty straightforward on this to me.
If I was writing a story about Te'o on Monday, would I have been expected to fact check the tidbits about the dead girlfriend? I'm guessing, but just guessing, that I would not be expected to do that since the circumstances had been reported in so many other media outlets.
Somebody should have confirmed the facts behind the story, but am I correct that not every last reporter/columnist would be expected to do that?
? You said "And 99.99 percent of the time, that's going to be a pretty good assumption." If that's wholly different from what my paraphrasing was, fine -- the point seems the same to me but I'll accept your complaint that it's not -- but I didn't willfully misrepresent anything. Please calm down.
timely. His trial is now scheduled for Feb. 11th. Dennard also fell for other reasons, one he didn't play that well last season, part injuries to ribs, etc. and part his attitude went into the toilet.
This is from the "Principles of Journalism" page of the Pew Research Center:
It's up to the journalist, the editor, and the media source to determine what needs to be verified and how to do so. Much of what's reported we take at face value.
Example: If you do a "man on the street" interview and the guy says his name is "John Smith," you jot his name down and run with it. I don't know if any of the big media outlets would check his ID to verify, but most smaller ones won't. You just take his word. I say this from experience.
Here's another controversial example: How did we know Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, until there was verified proof? We took it at face value because it had been accepted as fact for so long. You might assume that someone verified it at some point -- Columbia, Harvard, University of Chicago, the Secret Service -- but those are only assumptions.
Only until the birther movement gathered steam was the birth certificate made public, and thus the facts verified. (And of course there's a hard core out there that will never be convinced that the facts have been verified in this case.)
I would also add that sports writers probably don't spend too much time verifying anecdotes passed on from athletes. How many times have we seen articles about some old time baseball player spinning a yarn about "the time they faced so-and-so at Forbes Field with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth" only to search box scores and find out it couldn't have happened?
The refrain is always "if only there was a way to verify this!" And usually, there is. But it is worth it? With the case of Te'o, once this "anecdote" reach proportions of Epic Myth, somebody probably should have gone sniffing. But hindsight is 20/20.
I would think that one can trust a person being placed on the ballot for elected office that requires one to be a natural born US citizen that a reasonable standard of proof of said citizenship that one could cite it in an article.
I believe the Constitution sets standards for eligibility for office. It makes no mention of how and if that eligibility will be verified.
The Ben Muth article on the same site about the SF/GB game should not be read by faint-of-heart Packer fans. Ugly. But a nice description of read/option defenses.
Sam - what the Niners have that essentially NO one has is _2_ ILBS who are excellent pass defenders - Willis and Bowman. In nickle, against a 3 WR 1 TE 1 RB set (which is extremely common in today's NFL) they will put 1 CB each on the recievers, play the LBs in a short zone or man and have 2 safeties helping out. It's not an unbeatable defense - especially if the QB has time to throw - but it's very effective and has been against GB, NO, and (for 3 quarters) NE. Seattles' corners are better... BUT their run defense is weaker, and their LBs are weaker, so they are more susceptable to play action and TE passes etc. The do a good job on RB outlet passes - I think this is mostly just how well the overall defense makes tackles.
I didn't realize Abraham on the Falcons' DL was banged up... this game could come down to "which DL is healthier". Because the Niners defense scheme is more or less PREDICATED on being able to stop the run with 6 in the box (against 3 WR sets), and to get consistent pressure from a 4 man rush ... and since Justin Smith tore his triceps (2nd half of NE game), neither of these things have been altogether true and they are giving up lots of yards and points.
But Ransome Stoddard would have never been Senator!
OK, so now I'm watching the Notre Dame press conference led by Jack Swarbrick, the vice-president/director of Notre Dame athletics. He's taking an inflexible "pro-Manti" stance and making an OK case for his innocence … although it's difficult to understand how Manti Te'o could travel to Hawaii to visit his "girlfriend" without actually seeing her, unless he's just a profoundly confused person. Going to Hawaii to see a girl and then merely texting with her (the whole time you're there) is the equivalent of taking the Wonderlic Test and scoring a negative 36.
Understood, and I'm not trying to undersell the 49ers defense. They're obviously quite good. But I'll believe a linebacker can cover Tony Gonzalez when I see it, even Patrick Willis. It should be a pretty good game, all things told.
This is a much better matchup for the Falcons offense than last week. SFs CBs are no slouches but they can't match up physically the way Seattle's could (no other team can). The Niners D is by no means weak but it's weakest unit will be going up against the Falcons best unit.
On paper this looks like it will be the better game of the two.
I come for the football, stay for the Shooty posts.
He was first team all Big-10. I think the impression was that he played pretty well despite the injuries.
I ask seriously.
To review, here are the statements:
"I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer."
As a Nebraska alum and viewer of probably 90% of Dennard's career games, in my view he definitely took a step back last year (again his injuries hobbled him much of the season), I think he got 1st team on rep alone. I'm not surprised at his success as a rookie, he was always a bad ass to me, and count me as shocked by his bad behavior (in the bowl game against SoCar. he got tossed, even if he was baited) and obviously the incident with the cop.
"I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer."
I thought the statement was that he found out Dec. 26th?
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