Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o needs to take a long, hard look at the Lance Armstrong spectacle.
If Te'o is lying about his role in the dead girlfriend hoax, he has to come clean now. The alternative is to end up a smaller version of Armstrong, who this week finally admitted using performance-enhancing drugs to win seven straight Tour de France titles.
Armstrong's "confession" to Oprah Winfrey was excruciating. There were far too many rationalizations – lots of other cyclists were doping, a win-at-all-costs mentality carried over from his fight against cancer – and far too few apologies. There was little remorse for the lasting damage he did to the people he vilified and to the sport he supposedly loved.
Te'o conceded this week that the girlfriend he repeatedly talked about didn't exist in real life. The heart-wrenching story – she supposedly died of leukemia within hours of his grandmother last September – embellished his on-the-field talents to make him immensely popular and a Heisman Trophy finalist.
Te'o claims he was the victim of a cruel deception, but there are many inconsistencies. If he's not careful, his NFL career could be at risk.
If there's a common lesson to these stories that have jumped from the sports world into popular culture, it's that lies beget lies. It gets more and more difficult to eventually face the truth.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
• Read more articles by the Editorial Board
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
Order Reprint
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.