Manti Te'o & Lance Armstrong

The Bizarre Story of Manti Te’o

• We at Sportico will do our best to recap the supremely bizarre story of Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o. Starting with the facts; Te’o is arguably the best linebacker in college football. He will likely be a top 15 pick in this April's NFL Draft. He had a grandmother who died in September.
• Back in September, when it was said that Te’o’s grandmother had died, it was also reported that his girlfriend also died (of leukemia). Te’o’s story touched many and the publicity was part of the reason he catapulted to stardom and into the race for the Heisman trophy. On Wednesday, the story began to unravel. It turns out that Te’o’s girlfriend never existed, and Te’o was at best the victim of a horrible prank, at worst was complicit in one of the biggest fame-grabs of all-time.
• What sports news site Deadspin was able to uncover was that a friend of Te’o was keeping the twitter account attributed to Te’o’s girlfriend, and that she never existed, she never went to Stanford (where it had been reported she met Te’o in 2009) and she never died of leukemia. How Te’o knew the girl for four years and dated her for a little more than one, without ever meeting her is puzzling at best. According to him, their’s was a relationship entirely over the phone and internet.
• Both Te’o and Notre Dame have come out with a full throated defense of their parts in this situation. Te’o saying he was the victim of a prank, Notre Dame standing firmly behind Te’o. There is much that is yet to be uncovered, and this story will continue to unfold over the next few days and weeks, but two things are for sure: This is one of the most bizarre stories in the history of the internet and people are having fun with this.

Lance Armstrong Admits

• Perhaps the person happiest with the Te'o story is Lance Armstrong, because it turns the eyes of the sports world away from him. Armstrong sat down for an interview with Oprah which was aired last night. In that interview Armstrong finally admitted to doping during his run of 7 straight Tour de France titles.
• Armstrong expressed some regret for his decision,but said he was not cheating because he was "leveling the playing field." Armstrong argues that because almost every other cyclist was also doping it was not cheating for him to take steroids.
• Armstrong was largely unemotional during the interview which leads to some questioning the sincerity of his apology. While the doping scandal has followed Armstrong around for years, it should not be forgotten that he has raised almost half a billion dollars for cancer research. 

NBA hodgepodge

• As the NBA nears its all-star break, we decided to give a quick recap of some happenings around the league:
• The All-Star teams were announced and the Lakers (17-22) and Celtics (20-18) both got two starters.  Some people think that better teams should get better placement but I don't think you can blame Kobe Bryant or Dwight Howard for the abysmal start the Lakers have had, and I definitely don't think there's more deserving star power at that position.  Kevin Durant is the only non-L.A. player starting for the West with Clippers Chris Paul and Blake Griffin being the other two.  The East's starting 5 is aforementioned Celtics Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce, Heat players Lebron James and Dwayne Wade, and Carmelo Anthony.
• Speaking of James, on Wednesday night he became the youngest player ever to score 20'000 points and just for good measure, he recorded his 5'000th career assist as well in a convincing victory over upstart Golden State.  And then last night the Heat beat the Lakers 99-90 in a game that was not as close as it looked and made the star-studded Lakers look old and slow.
• Carmelo Anthony, fresh off his one game suspension for confronting Kevin Garnett by the team bus after a Celtics-Knicks game was actually taped by his owner in the following game in an attempt to find proof that teams cross the line in attempting to antagonize him with trash talk. 
• And in a game that doesn't seem too important on the surface, the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns 98-94 last night.  Why does this make news? It's the first time that the Bucks have won in Phoenix since 1987, ending a streak of 24 consecutive losses.  13 of the 30 players on the roster had not even been born yet the last time it happened.