Manti Te’o finally spoke Friday night, saying he never had anything to do with creating the hoax heard round the world.
“When [people] hear the facts, they’ll know,” Te’o said in an off-camera interview with ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap. “They’ll know that there is no way that I could be part of this. … I wasn’t faking it. I wasn’t part of this.”
Though some questions remain, Te’o admitted to lying to his father about having met the fictional Lennay Kekua, and said he tried to get her to go on Skype and FaceTime with her several times but was rebuffed.
Nevertheless, a sad truth has emerged from his surreal cyberspace romance.
The Internet can be a gateway to out-of-control, vitriolic commentary and based on the responses I have gotten from an overwhelming number of readers, we have lost our compassion, if not our souls.
Here are a few emails from readers in response to my Thursday’s column:
* “How do you figure that what Te’o did was a mistake. ?? It was a deliberate effort to fool people. The mistake here is you saying it was a mistake. I’ll add you my list of enablers.”
* “3 months and a million interviews and he never mentions it was strictly an on-line relationship … he is no victim.
Oh by the way “the love of my life” I never actually met her … duh”
* “Congratulations, you made the story about you. Good work.”
And my personal favorite was the individual that wrote to make sure or she got credit for this Tweet.
“OJ Simpson has vowed to find Manti Te’o’s real girlfriend.”
“The OJ Simpson joke credited to @notbillwalton on the Manti Te’o story was mine originally, he only retweeted it, my twitter account is @minivangundy, I thank you for making this correction.”
That’s not the worst. The worst have been the theories:
* Te’o was a homosexual and the fake girlfriend was a cover.
Are we really still that narrow minded?
* Te’o and Notre Dame milked the story for all it was worth.
This means Te’o, his family, his coaches and administrators at Notre Dame were in on it. I don’t think even Oliver Stone would touch that script.
Anger and cynicism were the overwhelming responses. Everyone became a comedian.
When did we turn into a nation of haters? When did we start to take so much pleasure at another person’s misfortune?
A friend of mine said, ‘You can only go one of two ways on this story. You can be cynical or naive and naive doesn’t sell.”
What a shame.
Because it seems more likely than not Te’o was duped in some fashion. He was drawn in by soul less people with too much time and not nearly enough compassion on their hands.
Te’o may be twice the victim — once by the lowlifes that committed the fraud and a second time by everyone that piled on. Makes you wonder what’s become of us.