Manti Te'o's Sunken Love Boat

By now, you may have heard the story: University of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's reported girlfriend that died of leukemia, shortly after his grandmother passed away, did not really exist. Te'o claims he was duped by an online hoax; he was in an online relationship and was taken for a ride. Deadspin ran a story suggesting Te'o was not completely in the dark. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

CULTURE OF GOSSIP

We sure do love our gossip in America. The story of Te'o's girlfriend that wasn't has dominated Internet news, Twitter, and talk radio - both sports and news talk - since the Deadspin story broke yesterday. It has nothing to do with football, Notre Dame's season, or Te'o being last year's Heisman Trophy runner up. It's about inconsistencies about reports regarding the man's love life.

I love sports and I like to read a juicy gossip story every now and then like most people do, but this is, in my eyes, a kid - a college kid - whose personal life (or at least stories about it) was available to the public. On top of that, the story is essentially about what did not happen in his personal life. Note the repeated use of that word: "personal".

With that, my overall reaction to this story about a non-story can be summed up by Billy Crystal in "Analyze This".