It's the morning after and the sordid Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax affair appears only to be beginning, though there were murmurs of the former Notre Dame linebacker taking to the airwaves some time Thursday to tell his side -- as the school's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, alluded Wednesday evening.
So there is the initial story: Notre Dame asserting its bellwether linebacker and 2012 Heisman Trophy runner-up was the victim of a scam. There is the initial initial story, from Deadspin, asserting Te'o was perhaps in on it.
And there are the bits and pieces of evidence on the fringe that emerged Thursday in conversations with people close to the Irish football team, and from industrious souls online, that may or may not clarify what exactly is going on.
First: The voice on the other end of the phone was real. According to conversations with people close to the team, at least two individuals who were not Manti Te'o - including one player, according to a source - had a phone conversation with the person claiming to be Lennay Kekua.
And when the news broke yesterday that the voice on the other end of the phone was essentially a cipher, that player wondered: "Then who was I talking to?"
Similarly, the surprise among teammates regarding Wednesday's news of a hoax was real. One source recounted Manti Te'o encountering a player who had just finished a conversation with his girlfriend, and Te'o advising that the player cherish those conversations, because Te'o couldn't have them with his girlfriend anymore.
Not shockingly, the reaction from that player upon the Lennay Kekua ruse being exposed was one of confusion, as to what Manti Te'o knew and why he would make a comment to that effect.
And there indeed is also a belief in and around the team, as noted in this piece by a Notre Dame student, that Te'o's relationship with "Lennay Kekua" was not as profound as it was made out to be to the public.
Swarbrick referred to the Notre Dame independent investigators uncovering "chatter" on the Internet that "is sort of the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking, the sort of casualness with which among themselves they were referring to what they had accomplished and what they had done."
An industrious soul named Justin Megahan uncovered some such chatter late Wednesday night and collected it all in one blog post as of Thursday morning. One of the participants in that chatter, though -- the one with the Twitter handle "jayRahz" -- would go on to point the finger at the man Deadspin identified as the likely ringleader in the hoax: Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.
"everyone needs to hit up Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and get the truth.. the truth will set you free!!" he tweeted Wednesday night.
The timeline offered by Notre Dame indicated that, while at the college football awards show in Orlando on Dec. 6, Te'o was contacted again by the people who portrayed themselves as Lennay Kekua. Te'o was "very unnerved by that, as you might imagine," Swarbrick said.
Te'o then waited 20 days to speak to Notre Dame coaches on the subject, with Swarbrick justifying the delay by saying Te'o wanted to return home to Hawaii and discuss the matter face-to-face with his parents.
It's important to note that Te'o's parents accompanied him from city to city that week, including Orlando and New York.
Likewise it's also important to note that a young star confronted with this situation before one of the biggest weekends of his life may not have been able to process that for a talk with Mom and Dad. It is more or less impossible to know at this stage.
But Te'o still had media sessions to endure for the Heisman Trophy weekend that followed.
"I don't think of myself as a brand, per se, but as a guy who people look up to as a role model," Te'o said on Dec. 7, the day after allegedly hearing from the hoaxers again. "I'm far from perfect. I never said once I'm perfect. But I try to, in the things I do and the words and I say and the way I conduct my business off the field, I try to just relate to kids and hopefully they can relate to me. and when they see me, hopefully it inspires them to be something great. For me, my whole thing is giving kids hope that they can have dreams and those dreams can come true."
He was then asked this question: Manti, you're very resilient, you lose your grandmother and your girlfriend within the span of 24 hours. I'm just wondering, what made you want to keep on playing the game?
"My faith," Te'o said. "I drew strength from my faith, from my heavenly father, the same thing that everybody should draw strength from. Because in times like that, you find out what life is truly about. There's this game that of football that we all love, and then there's life. That's what this whole thing is about. That's why I'm here."
The following day, Dec. 8, in a session shortly before the Heisman ceremony, brought a question about what charity work Te'o had done in the past year.
"I worked with Relay for Life stuff," Te'o said. "I really got hit with cancer. I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. I've really tried to go to children's hospitals and see children. I got that opportunity in Houston, too, to go see those kids and spend time with them."
Why Te'o chose to maintain the girlfriend-dying-of-cancer story that day, perhaps less than 48 hours after getting rocked by the reappearance of Lennay Kekua, is among the many questions left unanswered here. Was he embarrassed? Was he unable to compute what was occurring? Was he complicit in the scam and continuing the lie?
Only Te'o can answer, and that may not be enough still.
bchamilton@tribune.com
Twitter @ChiTribHamilton
So there is the initial story: Notre Dame asserting its bellwether linebacker and 2012 Heisman Trophy runner-up was the victim of a scam. There is the initial initial story, from Deadspin, asserting Te'o was perhaps in on it.
And there are the bits and pieces of evidence on the fringe that emerged Thursday in conversations with people close to the Irish football team, and from industrious souls online, that may or may not clarify what exactly is going on.
First: The voice on the other end of the phone was real. According to conversations with people close to the team, at least two individuals who were not Manti Te'o - including one player, according to a source - had a phone conversation with the person claiming to be Lennay Kekua.
And when the news broke yesterday that the voice on the other end of the phone was essentially a cipher, that player wondered: "Then who was I talking to?"
Similarly, the surprise among teammates regarding Wednesday's news of a hoax was real. One source recounted Manti Te'o encountering a player who had just finished a conversation with his girlfriend, and Te'o advising that the player cherish those conversations, because Te'o couldn't have them with his girlfriend anymore.
Not shockingly, the reaction from that player upon the Lennay Kekua ruse being exposed was one of confusion, as to what Manti Te'o knew and why he would make a comment to that effect.
And there indeed is also a belief in and around the team, as noted in this piece by a Notre Dame student, that Te'o's relationship with "Lennay Kekua" was not as profound as it was made out to be to the public.
Swarbrick referred to the Notre Dame independent investigators uncovering "chatter" on the Internet that "is sort of the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking, the sort of casualness with which among themselves they were referring to what they had accomplished and what they had done."
An industrious soul named Justin Megahan uncovered some such chatter late Wednesday night and collected it all in one blog post as of Thursday morning. One of the participants in that chatter, though -- the one with the Twitter handle "jayRahz" -- would go on to point the finger at the man Deadspin identified as the likely ringleader in the hoax: Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.
"everyone needs to hit up Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and get the truth.. the truth will set you free!!" he tweeted Wednesday night.
The timeline offered by Notre Dame indicated that, while at the college football awards show in Orlando on Dec. 6, Te'o was contacted again by the people who portrayed themselves as Lennay Kekua. Te'o was "very unnerved by that, as you might imagine," Swarbrick said.
Te'o then waited 20 days to speak to Notre Dame coaches on the subject, with Swarbrick justifying the delay by saying Te'o wanted to return home to Hawaii and discuss the matter face-to-face with his parents.
It's important to note that Te'o's parents accompanied him from city to city that week, including Orlando and New York.
Likewise it's also important to note that a young star confronted with this situation before one of the biggest weekends of his life may not have been able to process that for a talk with Mom and Dad. It is more or less impossible to know at this stage.
But Te'o still had media sessions to endure for the Heisman Trophy weekend that followed.
"I don't think of myself as a brand, per se, but as a guy who people look up to as a role model," Te'o said on Dec. 7, the day after allegedly hearing from the hoaxers again. "I'm far from perfect. I never said once I'm perfect. But I try to, in the things I do and the words and I say and the way I conduct my business off the field, I try to just relate to kids and hopefully they can relate to me. and when they see me, hopefully it inspires them to be something great. For me, my whole thing is giving kids hope that they can have dreams and those dreams can come true."
He was then asked this question: Manti, you're very resilient, you lose your grandmother and your girlfriend within the span of 24 hours. I'm just wondering, what made you want to keep on playing the game?
"My faith," Te'o said. "I drew strength from my faith, from my heavenly father, the same thing that everybody should draw strength from. Because in times like that, you find out what life is truly about. There's this game that of football that we all love, and then there's life. That's what this whole thing is about. That's why I'm here."
The following day, Dec. 8, in a session shortly before the Heisman ceremony, brought a question about what charity work Te'o had done in the past year.
"I worked with Relay for Life stuff," Te'o said. "I really got hit with cancer. I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. I've really tried to go to children's hospitals and see children. I got that opportunity in Houston, too, to go see those kids and spend time with them."
Why Te'o chose to maintain the girlfriend-dying-of-cancer story that day, perhaps less than 48 hours after getting rocked by the reappearance of Lennay Kekua, is among the many questions left unanswered here. Was he embarrassed? Was he unable to compute what was occurring? Was he complicit in the scam and continuing the lie?
Only Te'o can answer, and that may not be enough still.
bchamilton@tribune.com
Twitter @ChiTribHamilton