text: Manti Te'o has already tried to explain how his heartwarming story of playing through adversity was a lie he wasn't responsible for, how he was the victim of a cruel hoax about a dead girlfriend who never existed. 
   
   FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2013, file photo, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o answers a question during media day for the BCS national championship NCAA college football game in Miami. The wrenching story... (Associated Press) 
   
   FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2012, file photo, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o chases the action during the second half of an NCAA college football game against BYU in South Bend, Ind. The wrenching story... (Associated Press) 
   
   FILE - In this Nov. 17, 2012, file photo, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o takes the field during senior day before an NCAA college football game against Wake Forest in South Bend, Ind. The wrenching... (Associated Press) 
   
   People walk in front of the Notre Dame administration building, known as the Golden Dome, Thursday Jan. 17, 2013 on the campus of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. In a shocking announcement,... (Associated Press) 
   
   FILE - In this Aug. 16, 2012, file photo, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o answers a question during NCAA college football media day in South Bend, Ind. The wrenching story of Te'o's girlfriend dying... (Associated Press) 
   
   Manti Te'o's family home appears, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013, in Laie, Hawaii. People in Te'o's hometown stood firmly behind the Notre Dame linebacker after the story of his girlfriend and her death from... (Associated Press) 
   
   He still has questions to answer, with many wondering whether he was a victim or participant in the scam. Those doubts even extended to his own campus, where he is one of the most popular players in Notre Dame's storied history. 
   
   "Whenever Manti decides to speak I'll bet the entire campus will stop what they're doing and watch what he has to say," Notre Dame student body president Brett Rocheleau said Thursday. "I think the majority of students believe in Manti. They just want to hear him answer these final few questions and hear the story from his point of view." 
   
   When Te'o will do that, like so much else about this story, is still a mystery. 
   
   An Associated Press review of news coverage found that Te'o talked about his doomed love in a Web interview on Dec. 8 and again in a newspaper interview published Dec. 10. He and the university said he learned on Dec. 6 that it was all a hoax _ not only was she not dead, she wasn't real. 
   
   On Thursday, a day after the bizarre news broke, there were questions 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. He came in second, propelled by one of the most compelling plot lines of the season. 
   
   Yahoo sports columnist Dan Wetzel said the case has "left everyone wondering whether this was really the case of a na??ve 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 was not at the news conference; the school released a 225-word statement from him. 
   
   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 one of college football's feel-good stories 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. 
   
   Sports Illustrated posted a previously unpublished transcript of a one-on-one interview with Te'o from Sept. 23. In it, he goes into great detail about his relationship with Kekua and her physical ailments. He also mentioned meeting her for the first time after a game in California. 
   
   "We met just, ummmm, just she knew my cousin. And kind of saw me there so. Just kind of regular," he told SI. 
   
   Among the outstanding questions: 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 in Bradenton, Fla., where he has been training with other NFL hopefuls at the IMG Academy. 
   
   Notre Dame said Te'o found out that Kekua 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 column that first ran in The Los Angeles Times, on Dec. 10, Te'o recounted why he played a few days after he found out Kekua 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 Dec. 9 while attending a ceremony in Newport Beach, Calif., for the Lott Impact Awards. 
   
   On Wednesday, when Deadspin.com broke the story, Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not go public with its findings sooner because it expected the Te'o family to come forward first. 
   
   Asked if the NCAA was monitoring the Te'o story for possible rules violations, NCAA President Mark Emmert said: 
   
   "We don't know anything more than you do," he told reporters at the organization's convention in Dallas. "We're learning about this through the stories just the same as you are. But we have to wait and see what really transpired there. It's obviously (a) very disturbing story and it's hard to tell where the facts lie at this point. 
   
   "But Notre Dame is obviously looking into it and there will be a lot more to come forward. Right now, it just looks ... well, we don't know what the facts are, so I shouldn't comment beyond that." 
   
   ___ 
   
   AP Sports Writers Ralph Russo and Tim Reynolds contributed to this report. ||||| Story highlights Manti Te'o is a hoax victim, Notre Dame says, but questions continue to pop up 
   
   A sportswriter thinks Te'o may have embellished his relationship 
   
   An NFL football player says he has met a woman he thought was Kekua 
   
   In a little more than three months, Manti Te'o probably will be drafted by an NFL team and sign a multimillion dollar deal. 
   
   Before teams sink that much money into players, they have questions. 
   
   With the revelation that the football feel-good story of the year centered on the Notre Dame linebacker's love for a woman who never existed, many people have questions for Te'o -- a lot of questions. 
   
   And as each question in the saga gets answered -- none publicly by Te'o --- it seems another one, or two, or three, crop up. 
   
   For instance, why did Te'o tell reporters before the Heisman Trophy presentation on December 8 that he "lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer," when two days earlier the woman he thought was dead called him on his cellphone? 
   
   JUST WATCHED How the Te'o girlfriend hoax began Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH How the Te'o girlfriend hoax began 04:10 PLAY VIDEO 
   
   JUST WATCHED Notre Dame stands behind Te'o Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Notre Dame stands behind Te'o 02:55 PLAY VIDEO 
   
   JUST WATCHED Deadspin shares how it broke Te'o story Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Deadspin shares how it broke Te'o story 03:16 PLAY VIDEO 
   
   JUST WATCHED Manti Te'o: My girlfriend never existed Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Manti Te'o: My girlfriend never existed 08:28 PLAY VIDEO 
   
   Why did he tell a Sports Illustrated reporter in October that Kekua came to one of his games then issue a statement this week that he never met her? 
   
   Who is now behind the one of the Twitter accounts associated with Lennay Kekua, a woman who apparently never lived, let alone died, in September before Te'o, who called her his girlfriend, played one of the biggest games of the young season? 
   
   The Te'o hoax in 30 posts 
   
   A tweet Thursday purportedly from the fictional girlfriend promised she would have a big announcement that would help sort out details of the story, but the tweet was merely a joke about Te'o. 
   
   Two other tweets on the page were retweets from the verified account of Te'o. 
   
   "@LennayKay I miss you!" a November 6 tweet from Te'o said. 
   
   On September 12, Te'o tweeted "@LennayKay you will always be with me wherever I go!" 
   
   It was unclear Thursday whether the person Te'o tweeted to in September used it again after reports broke of a hoax or whether someone created a new account with the same user name. 
   
   The airing of the bizarre story began Wednesday, when sports website Deadspin published a piece dismissing as a hoax the existence of Te'o's girlfriend -- the one who he said died around the same time as his grandmother while his team marched toward the BCS National Championship Game. 
   
   Then Wednesday, the university held a news conference saying Te'o was the victim of a "elaborate hoax." And Te'o, the Heisman Trophy runner-up, released a statement saying he was embarrassed that he was the victim of a "sick joke." 
   
   The bizarre developments left many wondering if they, instead of Te'o, were led on. 
   
   "Te'o's story that he is completely innocent in this does not really ring true to us," Timothy Burke, co-author of the Deadspin article, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night. 
   
   Pete Thamel, the Sports Illustrated writer who published a transcript of his interview with Te'o, said he thinks the star linebacker was duped. 
   
   "If he was acting he deserves an Oscar nomination," Thamel said. "The depth and the detail of this scam is mindboggling, but I do think Te'o ... he caught the wave of this story, maybe exaggerated the depths of their relationship a little. But at the end of the day, we need to hear from Manti Te'o." 
   
   JUST WATCHED Writer: Reporters didn't check Te'o hoax Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Writer: Reporters didn't check Te'o hoax 02:55 PLAY VIDEO 
   
   JUST WATCHED Burke: Three people may be in on hoax Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Burke: Three people may be in on hoax 04:57 PLAY VIDEO 
   
   JUST WATCHED Journalists missed truth about Te'o Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Journalists missed truth about Te'o 03:13 PLAY VIDEO 
   
   Doubters wonder if Heisman Trophy a factor in hoax 
   
   The hoax 
   
   The story of the girlfriend came to light in September as Notre Dame continued its improbable undefeated season, and Te'o, a relentless tackler, was beginning to emerge as a front-runner for the prestigous Heisman Trophy. 
   
   He led the Fighting Irish, amassing double-digit tackle games and becoming the face of one of the best defenses in the nation. 
   
   In September and October, Te'o told interviewers that his girlfriend and grandmother had died within hours of each other. The girlfriend, a 22-year-old Stanford University student, died of leukemia, he said. 
   
   The twin losses inspired him to honor them with sterling play on the field, Te'o said. He led his team to a 20-3 routing of Michigan State after he heard the news. 
   
   "I miss 'em, but I know that I'll see them again one day," he told ESPN. 
   
   Opinion: Te'o tale a mirror to our gullibility? 
   
   It was indeed a gripping interest story of determination. And the media ran with it. 
   
   No one bothered to seek out Kekua's family until Deadspin, acting on an anonymous e-mail received last week, started poking around. 
   
   "What do you do when you first want to know something? You Google it, right?" Burke said on CNN. "And Google searches for 'Lennay Kekua' only showed up articles about her dying, and inspiring Manti Te'o. 
   
   "There's no evidence of her existing in any way, other than, you know, after she had allegedly died. And we thought that was a little weird." 
   
   Te'o's grandmother died in September, Deadspin said. 
   
   But there was no Social Security Administration record of Kekua's death. The Birth and Death Registration Office in Orange County, California, told CNN it had no record of Kekua, nor does the county coroner. 
   
   Deadspin called mortuaries and funeral homes in Carson, California, where Kekua was reportedly buried -- but came up empty. 
   
   The website sought out the person whose picture had been presented as that of Kekua and tracked her down. 
   
   Timeline: How the story unfolded 
   
   She was alive, didn't have leukemia and had never met Te'o. 
   
   "That sort of opened everything up," Burke said. 
   
   The revelation prompted the Notre Dame athletics director to call a news conference Wednesday. There was no way for Te'o to know the relationship was a hoax because it had been conducted strictly online and on the phone, said director Jack Swarbrick. 
   
   The pair had set up several meetings, including in Hawaii, where Te'o grew up -- but Kekua never showed, Swarbrick said. 
   
   The university said it did not know how many people were in on the ruse. 
   
   According to Swarbrick, Te'o received a call from a woman claiming to be his girlfriend on December 6, telling him she was not dead. Those calls continued, but Te'o did not answer, he said. 
   
   The Heisman Trophy was awarded two days later, and Te'o made comments about losing relatives to cancer before he finished second in the award voting to quarterback Johnny Manziel of Texas A & M. 
   
   The Stanford University registrar's office told CNN that it has never had a student registered in Kekua's name or using an alternate spelling. 
   
   "Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there's no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed," Deadspin contends. "There was no Lennay Kekua." 
   
   Te'o in his own words 
   
   Her 'soulful eyes' 
   
   So, how did the two fall in love? 
   
   According to the South Bend Tribune in Indiana -- the newspaper of Notre Dame's hometown, the two met -- yes, met -- after a football game in Palo Alto, California, in 2009. 
   
   "Their stares got pleasantly tangled, then Manti Te'o extended his hand to the stranger with a warm smile and soulful eyes," the paper gushed. "They could have just as easily brushed past each other and into separate sunsets. Te'o had plenty to preoccupy himself that November weekend in Palo Alto, Calif., back in 2009." 
   
   The article went on to say: "Lennay Kekua was a Stanford student and Cardinal football fan when the two exchanged glances, handshakes and phone numbers that fateful weekend three seasons ago." 
   
   Te'o's father, Brian, was quoted in the article: "They started out as just friends. Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple." 
   
   The newspaper said Wednesday it based Teo's story on information from the linebacker, his family members and coaches -- and moved the story to its archives. 
   
   But as Thamel reported Thursday, Te'o said they met through a cousin. 
   
   "The only time he didn't speak with confidence was when I asked how they met," he wrote. I didn't press him, as it was clearly something he didn't want to share. I suspected they may have met online, understood he wouldn't have wanted that public and moved on." 
   
   Media reports indicate the parents never met Kekua. 
   
   Social media jump all over story 
   
   Te'o was in Florida training for the NFL Scouting Combine, where draft prospects showcase their abilities for teams. He didn't meet with reporters or answer phone calls to his room on Thursday. 
   
   He tried to clear things up with a statement Wednesday saying he "developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online." 
   
   "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her," he said in the statement. 
   
   "To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," the statement continued. "It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life." 
   
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   Who's who on the Internet? Who knows
target: – If Manti Te'o really was an innocent dupe, tricked into believing he had a girlfriend with a tragic story, he's going to have some explaining to do, reports the AP. Two holes in Te'o's story so far: Even though Te'o says he learned on Dec. 6 that "Lennay Kekua" never existed, he perpetuated the story at least twice after that in interviews. Te'o claimed to have met Kekua in person, including once in a September interview with Sports Illustrated. "We met just, ummmm, just she knew my cousin," he said of their first supposed encounter. "And kind of saw me there so. Just kind of regular." As for who "Lennay Kekua" really was, the New York Post reports that the woman seen in the fake Twitter account is Diane O’Meara, a 23-year-old marketing rep from California. “Somebody stole her identity,” a relative says. O'Meara is lawyered up and keeping quiet at the moment. "Te'o's story that he is completely innocent in this does not really ring true to us," said Timothy Burke, the Deadspin editor who co-wrote the original story, on CNN.