But until the mushroom cloud of a Deadspin report enveloped his life Wednesday, Te'o was considered to be all that was right and good about college football. He was more than an All-American linebacker from Notre Dame; he was an ideal, a template for integrity, compassion and humility.I really don't know what to think about this deal. Could somebody be that naive? I find it hard to believe, but, damn, the dude seems so earnest. I think the only other football player I would ever think something like this would happen to is Tim Tebow.
Te'o might still be all of those things. Or none of them. We still don't know for sure.
We do know he issued a statement saying that he was the victim of an elaborate online and telephonic deception. We know that his "girlfriend," and her death from leukemia, were the figments of someone's depraved imagination. What we don't know is whether Te'o's imagination was involved in the deception.
Notre Dame says it wasn't. ND athletic director Jack Swarbrick did more than vouch for Te'o's reputation; he all but dared anyone to question it. The victim, said Swarbrick, wasn't simply Te'o himself, but also Te'o's innocence, his unconditional desire to help others.
"There's a lot of tragedy here," said Swarbrick in a Wednesday evening news conference. "There's a lot of sorrow here. But the thing I am most sad of, sad about -- sorry … That the single most trusting human being I've ever met will never be able to trust in the same way again in his life. That's an incredible tragedy."
Thursday, January 17, 2013
The Craziest Story I've Ever Heard
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Notre Dame's excuse for their football futility is that they must recruit students that must meet their rigorous academic standards. Now this story comes out and the only way it can be believed is if To'o is seriously retarded.
ReplyDeleteNow about those rigorous academic standards...
That irony stood out to me, also. I never really bought into the academic line of crap, because I knew one graduate student in English working on a thesis of having a year of athletic eligibility left. He definitely wasn't the sharpest guy I'd ever seen. I think the general futility of Notre Dame football can be traced to the integration of SEC football and facts on the ground. Those facts are:
ReplyDelete1. It gets pretty cold and depressing in South Bend during the winter (not like Minnesota, but definitely not like Southern Cal or Florida either) and
2. There aren't a lot of really attractive girls at Notre Dame (at least compared to Southern Cal or Florida). These have to really cut into recruiting.