The Fake Dead Girlfriend Edge: Manti Te'o's Crazy Life

Ah, Sportsmanship. Under a strict definition, sportsmanship is respect for the rules of the game (whatever game you want), respect for officials and their authority, respect for opponents as worthy adversaries, respect for one's team and teammates, and respect for oneself and one's principles.

So when a player, or a player's misguided and potentially deranged fan, decides that having a fake dead girlfriend is the best way to get ahead, is that a violation of sportsmanship or just poor decision making? If you're not sure what I'm talking about, Google Manti Te'o. He's a Notre Dame football player with a long-time, long-distance relationship with a woman he never met, who supposedly died during the season. Except -- she never existed at all. Te'o claims he was the victim of an elaborate hoax and had no involvement whatsoever. I'm not sure I'm buying it.

Manti Te'o

I love this opinion from Bill Plaschke of the LA Times:

Manti Te'o hoax never should have gotten this far

By Bill Plaschke

January 18, 2013

This country's most inspirational sportsman is exposed as a cheat. Two of the greatest players in baseball history are denied entry into the Hall of Fame because they are cheats. The NFL spends the first three weeks of the season using fake referees. A college football powerhouse admits to switching uniform numbers and deflating footballs.

Into a sports world filled with deceit stepped Manti Te'o with a story too good to be true, too necessary to be questioned.

Mr. Plaschke does a fabulous job writing about how the media, Notre Dame, and even the public didn't ask the right questions in order to out this hoax. We wanted Te'o's story to be true because other big-time sports stories stunk so badly. True love and heartbreak could still win out over all odds (or at least over Michigan State). We wanted someone to finally be telling the truth so we could still believe in that American dream of exorbitant pro contracts.

But here's what I'm thinking. I don't believe Manti Te'o was oblivious to the hoax. I've got older teenage boys and, while there is certainly a lot of e-relationship stuff that goes on (Facebook, texting, and Skyping at all hours), they wouldn't consider a young woman a girlfriend unless they'd actually met and, at the very least, held hands. Shoot -- I spent my fair share of hours on a twisty-corded landline phone doing homework while "talking" to my boyfriend, but he wasn't my boyfriend unless we'd at least talked or passed notes in the high school hallway. And that was in the dark ages.

So, we're to believe that this good-looking football stud from one of the most prestigious universities in the country had a girlfriend he'd never met? That their entire relationship was via electronic devices? If true, that in and of itself is one of the saddest commentaries on modern relationships. But I'm still not buying it.

In an interview with ESPN, ABC News reports that Te'o said "My relationship with Lennay wasn't a four-year relationship," Te'o said, according to ESPN.com. "There were blocks and times and periods in which we would talk and then it would end."

Does anyone else see that as bet-hedging for when his other girlfriends come forward?

As a mother, I think I'd want to meet my son's girlfriend at some point in the relationship. At the very least, I would have sent flowers to the hospital where she lay in a coma. I would have crocheted her a beanie to cover her head during chemo. I would have wanted more than a half-dozen photos of the woman my son cared about so much and the e-relationship that I, myself, had with her family.

So maybe she wasn't a "girlfriend," but a "girl friend." Okay. That would make some sense. But still.

Having a desperately ill, then tragically deceased, girlfriend did nothing but help Te'o's visibility. It positioned him in front of cameras, in front of fans, and in front of awards committees. But let's say he really, truly thought she was real. Isn't it still a little questionable to ride to the top on the wave of your real dying/dead girlfriend?

Back to my original question: How does any of this relate to sportsmanship? He didn't break any rules of the game. He didn't tamper with equipment to gain an advantage. He didn't take performance-enhancing drugs like Mr. A. Is this really a situation of poor sportsmanship?

I think so. First, it shows that the pressure to get noticed in order to get a pro contract is so great that even a good player (or his misguided stalker, as the case may be) will do anything to rise to the top of the pile (or get the object of his stalking there). It bends the rules of ethics in order to gain an advantage.

Secondly, if it turns out that anything Te'o is saying about the situation is a lie, we'll have a player who didn't respect his teammates or his school enough to keep them from participating in the hoax. Part of sportsmanship is having respect for oneself and one's teammates, right? Not duping them.

Hoaxes aren't limited to sports, though. Last summer, Ray Dolin, a writer who was hitchhiking across the U.S. in order to do research for a book on the kindness of strangers, was shot in the arm. By himself.
Read the story here. The difference between what Dolin did and this situation with Manti Te'o is that millions of dollars weren't at stake.

Ray Dolin

** Most kids don't grow up thinking "I want to write for Random House!" Parents aren't leveraging their retirement funds to pay for writing coaches and a vitamin regimen sure to inspire more creative plot lines. It's just not happening because there aren't the fame and fortunes in writing that there are in sports. Yes, some authors pen best-sellers that turn into major motion pictures. But that number is tiny compared to the number of professional athletes out there. Personally, I've never seen someone wearing a "Tom Clancy's Future Wife" t-shirts. Oh, wait...

But I digress. As a society, we believe in the fairy tale of physical prowess equaling success and attention. Some of us push our kids to believe in that fairy tale, too. But since 99% of all kids aren't going to become celebrithetes (or even pros), we've got a lot of pressure to make sure they get into the 1% crowd.

Which leads to players resorting to the fake dead girlfriend edge. Which just has to be wrong.