Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Photo by Bill Panzica wears blame here for not vetting his story more thoroughly, but Te'o was not always truthful. He was supposed to meet Kekua when he was home in Oahu, Hawaii, for the semester break after his junior season. He told his father, Brian, he was spending the night at a friend's house on the south side of the island and would hang out with his girlfriend while he was there. She cancelled their plans that night, but when Te'o returned home he told his father they had met anyway. Brian Te'o relayed that story to reporters in the fall, and what seemed like a white lie at the time quickly grew in proportion. When it turned out that Kekua never existed, it became the white whale that made it easy to believe Te'o knew about the hoax. "That's the thing I regret the most," Te'o said. "I knew that if [Brian] knew that I didn't meet her immediately he would say, 'No, red flag.' A red flag that I obviously should've seen, but I didn't." How Could He Be So Naïve? There are other red flags that crop up in hindsight when reviewing their two-year relationship. They all added to the suspicion that implicated Te'o in at least a minor role in creating this spellbinding hoax. How could he, a football superstar who would presumably be fighting off female suitors with a stick, devote himself to an Internet trickster? Apologists use his culture, his tightly held religious beliefs and his small community upbringing to explain how the big man on campus was sucked in by a well-conceived digital damsel in distress. "In many ways Manti was the perfect mark," Irish athletics director Jack Swarbrick said. "He is a guy who is so willing to believe in others and so ready to help." Te'o is far from the first person to be fooled by an online scammer. The practice of deceiving people via social media and long distance communiSept. 22, 2012 — Te'o intercepts two passes to help beat Michigan in front of a home crowd wearing lei in honor of the Irish captain. Kekua's "family" told Te'o she was buried earlier that day. The narrative lands Te'o on the cover of Sports Illustrated and launches him into Heisman Trophy contention. ✚