notre Page 10 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Football Recruit Who Said His Notre Dame Visit "Went Great" Never Actually Visited Campus
Georgia high school running back Stanley Williams committed to UGA two summers ago, but he may be having second thoughts. As his star has risen, he's received interest from a number of big-time programs, including, he says, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Oregon, and Notre Dame. The junior is planning to ...

Tuiasosopo Family Member Says Ronaiah May Address His Involvement In Hoax
Peter Navy Tuiasosopo, Ronaiah's uncle, spoke to reporters outside Oasis Christian Church, where his brother (Ronaiah's father) is pastor, and told reporters there will be a family meeting later this week to discuss how Ronaiah should address his role in the Lennay Kukua hoax....

Manti Te'o's Mom Tried To Convert Lennay Kekua To Mormonism Via Text Message
According to USA Today, the latest piecemeal bit to be released in this bizarre saga is the revelation that Ottilia Te'o, Manti's mother, tried to convert Lennay to Mormonism via text message. His family also engaged in bible study with Kekua, via text message, which Te'o alluded to with Jeremy Scha...

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. ...

Here's A Photo Of Manti Te'o With Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's Sister The Night Before The Notre Dame-USC Game
This photo, provided to us by a friend of the Tuiasosopos, was taken on Nov. 23, 2012—the night before the Notre Dame-USC game. It shows Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's younger sister, known as Pookah, with Manti Te'o. (According to Manti's uncle Alema Te'o, Pookah supposedly posed as Lennay Kekua's cousin.)...

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...

ESPN Reports Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Confessed To Te'o Hoax In December. Was Te'o Involved? Evidence Varies
ESPN's Shelley Smith is reporting that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the apparent creator of the Lennay Kekua hoax, confessed to duping Manti Te'o, according to an interview with a friend of Tuiasosopo. "He told me Manti was not involved at all, he was the victim," the woman told Smith, in an audio recording ...

"I Know A Liar When I'm Around One.": Manti Te'o's Uncle Comments On Ronaiah Tuiasosopo
Manti Te'o's uncle Alema Te'o went on The Zone Sports Network last night and spoke to radio hosts Scott Garrard and Riley Jensen about the Manti Te'o-Lennay Kekua story that we broke on Wednesday. Alema didn't have much to say about Manti, but he did offer some personal insight into the character o...

<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....

Report: Some At Notre Dame Wanted To Announce The Manti Te'o Hoax Last Week
Yahoo's Pat Forde is openly carrying water for the "Manti Te'o is a hapless victim" lobby at this point, but there's something fascinating at the top of his latest report: an assertion that the Notre Dame hoped to go public with the hoax last week, but that Te'o and his agent wanted to hold off....

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 ...

How <em>Sports Illustrated</em>'s Manti Te'o Story Got Published
While reporting his cover feature for Sports Illustrated on Manti Te'o, Pete Thamel found what he called some "small red flags" in the story of Lennay Kekua, the dead girlfriend who never existed. So what did he do?...

What Happened To Manti Te'o's Interview With ESPN?
At his teary press conference last night, when pressed on details that didn't add up, Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick promised to let Manti Te'o tell those parts himself. Te'o, Swarbrick said, would be addressing the media "soon."...

Darnell Dockett Wants To Cheer Up Manti Te'o By Taking Him To The Strip Club
This Manti Te'o business is on everyone's mind, including Darnell Dockett's. The Arizona Cardinals defensive end is sympathetic to Manti's situation, and has some interesting ideas on how to cheer Manti up:...

Here's Everything The Media Screwed Up In Reporting The Story Of Manti Te'o's Fake Dead Girlfriend
In our investigation of Manti Te'o and his nonexistent dead girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, published yesterday, we mentioned the media's role this fall in amplifying the hoax. Here are all the ways they got the story wrong:...

Manti Te'o's Teammates Had Their Doubts About Lennay Kekua
The big question is: What did he know and when did he know it? We may never get a straight answer from Te'o. Nor from his family, who have thrown hissy-fits anytime the media doesn't work as Manti's PR agency. But what about those who spent the most time with Te'o over the last few years. According ...