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SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - Not once but twice after he supposedly discovered his online girlfriend of three years never even existed, Notre Dame All-American linebacker Manti Te'o perpetuated the heartbreaking story about her death.
May 13, 2012 – From Te'o's Twitter account: "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies." Proverbs 31:10 (hash)LMK
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July 23 – From Te'o's Twitter account: mteo_5 Manti Te'o Be strong. Be brave. Never give up. (hash)3words (at)LennayKay
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Sept. 13 – Asked by reporters, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly says Te'o will play against Michigan State that Saturday despite the deaths that week of two people close to him. Media reports the next day identify the two as his grandmother and his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. Public records confirm that his grandmother, Annette Santiago, died Sept. 11.
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Sept. 15 – Te'o has 12 tackles and breaks up two passes and the 20th-ranked Fighting Irish win 20-3 at No. 10 Michigan State. Te'o says afterward "I lost two women that I truly love" and that he had "my girlfriend's family around me."
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Sept. 23 – In a one-on-one interview with Sports Illustrated, Te'o talks at length about his relationship with Kekua and her many health issues, making only one vague reference to meeting her for the first time in California in 2009. "We met just, ummmm, just she knew my cousin. And kind of saw me there so. Just kind of regular." He told SI they had been dating for a year. "Oct. 15 was the official date. Of last year. I've known her for four years. So we've been friends." A transcript of the interview was posted Thursday.
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Oct. 1 – A Sports Illustrated cover story describes how Te'o received a call from Kekua's older brother informing him of her death. Te'o says: "My girlfriend always told me, `Send roses while they can still smell them, tell people you love them while they can still hear.'"
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Oct. 3 – Te'o says at a media availability that during the walk-through before the Irish's Sept. 22 game against Michigan, he asked what time it was and realized Kekua's casket had been closed a minute earlier. He says she wanted him to skip her funeral to play. He had two interceptions in that 13-6 victory.
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Oct. 12 – A South Bend Tribune article, based on information from Te'o's father, describes how Te'o and Kekua met at a 2009 game at Stanford. Te'o's father, Brian, says she would visit him in Hawaii.
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Oct. 12 – From Te'o's Twitter account: Today is October the 12th! A month ago my life changed dramatically! Thank you for all your love and support! Day by day! (hash)574L
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Nov. 14 – In an Associated Press story, Te'o says that "every morning I wake up and my girlfriend is not on the phone. It reminds me that she's gone. That's the hardest part."
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Dec. 8 – South Bend television station WSBT shoots video of Te'o saying in a pre-Heisman interview in New York, "I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer." That's two days after the date given by Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick for when Te'o found out about the hoax.
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Dec. 9 – At the Lott Impact Awards dinner, Te'o says that Kekua "made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play."
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Jan. 5 – At the media day before the BCS title game, Te'o talks about his travails during the season, saying, "My team was always there for me, and my family was always there for me."
An Associated Press review of news coverage found that the Heisman Trophy runner-up talked about his doomed love in a Web interview on Dec. 8 and again in a newspaper interview published Dec. 11. He and the university said Wednesday that he learned on Dec. 6 that it was all a hoax, that not only wasn't she dead, she wasn't real.
On Thursday, a day after Te'o's inspiring, playing-through-heartache story was exposed as a bizarre lie, Te'o and Notre Dame faced questions from sports writers and fans about whether he really was duped, as he claimed, or whether he and the university were complicit in the hoax and misled the public, perhaps to improve his chances of winning the Heisman.
Yahoo sports columnist Dan Wetzel said the case has "left everyone wondering whether this was really the case of a naïve football player done wrong by friends or a fabrication that has yet to play to its conclusion."
Gregg Doyel, national columnist for CBSSports.com, was more direct.
"Nothing about this story has been comprehensible, or logical, and that extends to what happens next," he wrote. "I cannot comprehend Manti Te'o saying anything that could make me believe he was a victim."
On Wednesday, Te'o and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the player was drawn into a virtual romance with a woman who used the phony name Lennay Kekua, and was fooled into believing she died of leukemia in September. They said his only contact with the woman was via the Internet and telephone.
Te'o also lost his grandmother _ for real _ the same day his girlfriend supposedly died, and his role in leading Notre Dame to its best season in decades endeared him to fans and put him at the center of college football's biggest feel-good story of the year.
Relying on information provided by Te'o's family members, the South Bend Tribune reported in October that Te'o and Kekua first met, in person, in 2009, and that the two had also gotten together in Hawaii, where Te'o grew up.
Te'o never mentioned a face-to-face meeting with Kekua in public comments reviewed by the AP. And an AP review of media reports about Te'o since Sept. 13 turned up no instance in which he directly confirmed or denied those stories _ until Wednesday.
Among the outstanding questions Thursday: Why didn't Te'o ever clarify the nature of his relationship as the story took on a life of its own?
Te'o's agent, Tom Condon, said the athlete had no plans to make any public statements Thursday in Bradenton, Fla., where he has been training with other NFL hopefuls at the IMG Academy.
Notre Dame said Te'o found out that Kekau was not a real person through a phone call he received at an awards ceremony in Orlando, Fla., on Dec. 6. He told Notre Dame coaches about the situation on Dec. 26.
The AP's media review turned up two instances during that gap when the football star mentioned Kekua in public.
Te'o was in New York for the Heisman presentation on Dec. 8 and, during an interview before the ceremony that ran on the WSBT.com, the website for a South Bend TV station, Te'o said: "I mean, I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I've really tried to go to children's hospitals and see, you know, children."
In a story that ran in the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., on Dec. 11, Te'o recounted why he played a few days after he found out Kekau died in September, and the day she was supposedly buried.
"She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play," he said.
On Wednesday, Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not go public with its findings sooner because it expected the Te'o family to come forward first. But Deadspin.com broke the story Wednesday.
Reporters were turned away Thursday at the main gate of IMG's sprawling, secure complex. Te'o remained on the grounds, said a person familiar with situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because neither Te'o nor IMG authorized the release of the information.
"This whole thing is so nutsy that I believe it only could have happened at Notre Dame, where mythology trumps common sense on a daily basis. ... Given the choice between reality and fiction, Notre Dame always will choose fiction," sports writer Rick Telander said in the Chicago Sun-Times.
"Which brings me to what I believe is the real reason Te'o and apparently his father, at least went along with this scheme: the Heisman Trophy.
Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass blasted both Te'o and Notre Dame.
"When your girlfriend dying of leukemia after suffering a car crash tells you she loves you, even if it might help you win the Heisman Trophy, you check it out," he said.
He said the university's failure to call a news conference and go public sooner means "Notre Dame is complicit in the lie."
"The school fell in love with the Te'o girlfriend myth," he wrote.
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AP Sports Writers Ralph Russo and Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.
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