hd Page 23 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Why Katie Couric's Manti Te'o Interview Will Suck
Lennay Kekua's story tempted the many outlets that wrote about her partly because her death gave Te'o's rise, not in itself particularly moving or dramatic, a dimension of tragedy. It made writing about Te'o easier (by reducing the time a story had to spend on his place in the Notre Dame defense), a...

Notre Dame's Lennay Kekua "Investigation" Basically Consisted Of A Few Guys Using Google And LexisNexis
Today's South Bend Tribune has the first full account of Notre Dame's investigation of the Lennay Kekua hoax, and it's startling how little investigation actually went on. According to the university, Te'o informed officials of his dead/undead girlfriend on Dec. 26, and Notre Dame proceeded from the...

Report: Two Months After Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Gave "Lennay Kekua" Fake Leukemia, His Cousin Was Diagnosed With Real Leukemia
Among the (many) confusing things about the ongoing saga of Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend, the similarities between the real life of Te'o-deceiver Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and the false narrative he created have especially muddled the facts. Two turning points in the faked narrative: "Lennay Kekua" w...
![In ESPN Interview, Manti Te'o Admits To "Tailoring His Stories," Says He Wasn't Convinced Lennay Kekua Was Fake Until Wednesday [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18by27wccpz3tjpg.jpg)
In ESPN Interview, Manti Te'o Admits To "Tailoring His Stories," Says He Wasn't Convinced Lennay Kekua Was Fake Until Wednesday [UPDATE]
Admitting that he deceived his parents and the press about the nature of his relationship with Lennay Kekua, but denying any involvement in the hoax, Manti Te'o spoke with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap Friday night for more than two hours in an off-camera interview. (Most of what little we know about the int...

Newspaper: "Lennay" Called Manti Te'o In December And Said She'd Faked Her Death To Elude Drug Dealers
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, citing a source "close to the Te'o family," has the particulars of a phone conversation between Manti Te'o and "Lennay Kekua" in December, three months after "Lennay" had supposedly died. ...

What Did Manti Te'o Say About His Dead Girlfriend After He'd Learned She Wasn't Real?
Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick said that Manti Te'o was at ESPN's college football awards show, on Dec. 6, when he received a phone call alerting him to the hoax. That was the moment, according to the Notre Dame timeline, that Te'o learned Lennay Kekua wasn't dead, and wasn't real. Here are quotes fro...

<em>Us Weekly</em>: Te'o Hoaxer Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Auditioned For <em>The Voice</em> And Had A "Sob Story" About A Car Accident
And finally we've learned a little bit more about Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man we believe to have posed as Manti Te'o's girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. What we do know about Tuiasosopo so far? He sings. He's religious. He, like Lennay, supposedly got into a car accident. And we know that he knows Te'o....

Everything You Need To Know About Manti Te'o's Fake Dead Girlfriend
The saddest and most inspirational story of the college football season was a lie. Read the story » | How Sports Illustrated got it wrong » | What everyone got wrong » | Notre Dame responds » | Teammates had doubts » | Was an announcement planned? » | The hoaxer's audition »...

What Manti Te'o Told <em>Sports Illustrated</em> About Lennay Kekua
SI's Pete Thamel has been making the rounds today, explaining how he came to write the cover story that had the single biggest role in mythologizing the fake narrative of Manti Te'o's girlfriend. Now we've got more details. At SI.com, Thamel has addressed the steps he took to confirm Lennay Kekua's ...

Nebraska Quarterback Taylor Martinez Engineered One Of The Most Outstanding Plays This College Football Season
This year's Big Ten championship game is lacking some shine, what with the best team in the conference going undefeated but being ineligible and another, Penn State, being out of the running for the next several years. But that doesn't mean it's not worth watching, as Nebraska angles to seize its ...

Welcome Back, College Basketball: Two Games Ended In Excellent Buzzer Beaters On The First Night Of The Season
It wasn't all imperiled basketball players and disappointed veterans on college basketball's first night back. Above, Alabama and South Dakota St. were tied at 67 going into the final possession when Trevor Lacey got the ball and—well, you should just watch it. Spoiler alert: they didn't go into o...

De'Anthony Thomas's Punt Return TD Against Colorado Is Obscene
We all speculated what kind of brutality the Oregon Ducks would unleash upon the hapless Colorado Buffaloes, and early in the second quarter we learned the answer would be "obscene." Obscene to the degree of a 49-0 Oregon 20 minutes into the game, capped by this marvelous De'Anthony Thomas punt re...

Hugh Douglas Is Transitioning Nicely Into His Life As A Sports Pundit
You probably remember Hugh Douglas from his playing days with the Philadelphia Eagles and that one time he tried to beat up Terrell Owens. Now retired, Douglas is working as one of ESPN's many NFL analysts, and last night he went through one of the most sacred rites of passage in sports media: He a...

How's That "Going For It On Fourth Down" Thing Going For San Diego State?
This August brought momentous news: San Diego State Aztecs head coach Rocky Long had done lost his mind, and would be implementing essentially the strategy all advanced football stats people have been stridently advocating since the dawn of advanced football stats. Long was going for it on fourth (i...

The Two Common Fallacies That Explain Why NFL Coaches Punt On Fourth Down
« Previous entry | Next entry »...

Was The Panthers' Fourth-Down Decision Dumb Enough To Change The NFL's Punt-To-Win Philosophy?
« Previous entry | Next entry »...

Ask George Atallah, Spokesman For The NFL Players Association, About Last Night's Shitshow In Seattle
As the NFLPA's assistant executive director for external affairs, George Atallah is the official spokesman for the NFL players. As you might expect, he's a busy man right now. "What a nutty day," he told us earlier, when we approached him to see if he'd be willing to do a live chat. ...

Buffalo Brought The MACtion As They Ended The First Half Against Kent Tonight With A 46-Yard Hail Mary TD
Wednesday nights belong to the MAC, as any college football degenerate knows, and while the scoring of tonight's Kent-Buffalo matchup hasn't yet reached levels of, say, last year's NIU-Toledo game, the MACtion is alive and well. Just ask Alex Neutz, the Bulls receiver who hauled in this 46-yard ha...

Paul Thomas Anderson: Waiting For <em>The Master</em>
In late July, the Weinstein Company announced it would be releasing The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie, on September 14, which is early for an Oscar candidate. Most Best Picture nominees come out no sooner than October so that they're as fresh as possible in voters' minds. Nonetheless, the...

Ohio State's Devin Smith Made A Catch That's An Early Nominee For Play Of The Year
After a slow start that found themselves down 3-0 to Miami U., Ohio State broke ahead with this ridiculous catch by sophomore receiver Devin Smith, a one-handed affair that led Big Ten Network announcers in search of new underwear. [BTN]...