The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I've been hearing and reading some sportswriters, analysts, and even comedians lay claim that the Manti Te'o case fits the bill of a victimless crime. Assuming for a moment that Te'o only briefly lied about his girlfriend at the Heisman Trophy ceremony because he was embarrassed by his findings two days earlier when receiving a strange phone call from the woman who had pretended to be his girlfriend and who he was told had died of leukemia two months earlier, how would this be a victimless crime? This college kid thought he had found a special connection with a woman online. They supposedly spent a lot of time communicating, opened up about having feelings for one another, etc. Not long after he was informed of his grandmother dying, he was told that this girlfriend of his had perished from leukemia. Two people he felt extremely close to, to his knowledge, died within a week of each other. Two months later, he received a phone call from the woman who had allegedly died ...

The media in general, especially the sports media, is doing everything in its power to rid themselves of any responsibility with regard to the Manti Te'o story. On Thursday, Te'o's interview with Katie Couric will air, where the former Notre Dame linebacker admits to briefly lying about his "girlfriend." He had been informed that she died of leukemia in September, but received a strange phone call on December 6th from "her" (supposedly). While he allegedly informed family and the school about the call, he lied a couple days later at the Heisman Trophy ceremony when asked about her. I'm not going to say that lying about it was morally right. However, what was the guy supposed to do? Here's a 21-year old college kid - one of the finalists for the most coveted award in all of college football - who thought his "girlfriend" had died of leukemia two months prior, only to be called by this "girlfriend" two days before the ceremony...

Every time a sportswriter or talking head criticizes Manti Te'o for being gullible, I have to laugh. Who was it again that bought into and reported the story over and over again to millions of people without doing an ounce of research? Rumor has it that ESPN has a fake girlfriend of its own - her name is journalism. Tim Tebow has been demoted to a friend with benefits.