Untold

So just look at the camera when you're answering 'em, you know?

All right. Um…

Uh…

If someone were to say, "I remember Manti as this,"

what would you want them to remember you as?

Manti Te'o had an absolutely astounding senior year.

Without question.

His grandmother and girlfriend, Lennay Kekua,

had died the same night,

and he dedicated his season to them.

I… cried. I yelled.

You take, you know, the love of my life.

Last thing she said to me was, "I love you."

It reached out to people

that had never watched ESPN a day in their life.

Manti, you have made many of us all proud, especially those of us from Hawaii.

- Manti Te'o! -

What a great story. We know the adversity he's been through.

He lost his grandmother, then his girlfriend passed away.

It's gonna be fun watching him succeed.

It was an amazing story.

One problem.

His girlfriend did not exist.

Just like the feel-good hit of the summer, the Manti Te'o story isn't real.

What started as an inspirational story deteriorated into a cruel, twisted hoax.

The initial response was total bewilderment.

This was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax

perpetrated for reasons we can't fully understand.

The question tonight is, is Manti Te'o in on this elaborate hoax?

If this guy is in on this, he's a sick human being.

He let this go on and on and on.

Why in the world would this guy perpetuate something that big for that long?

A lot of what you write centers around this mysterious guy,

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

The man who was allegedly behind it all.

Hey, what's up, everyone? Um, this is Ronaiah.

Ronaiah was clearly the leader. It was his brainchild.

Was Manti in on the hoax?

The amount of voices, the amount of cell phones, it was just crazy shit.

I don't know who answered your phone,

and I don't care.

You made it clear what you want.

Is that Ronny?

There was some dimension of jealousy involved here.

- Did you create Lennay? -

I can honestly say that I truly hate Ronaiah.

The most fucked-up thing for me was, what was the point in all this?

The only person who can really answer this is Ronaiah.

It's in his best interest to finally step up and talk to somebody.

The next shoe to drop is really gonna be when Ronaiah,

who's allegedly the perpetrator of the hoax,

if he comes out and speaks, that will explain a lot.

All right. Ready to roll, Naya?

-Yeah. - All right.

Manti?

Feeling good?

Yeah.

- -

From that time in 2013 till now,

there was a time where I couldn't find a job.

People would see my name on applications and automatically be like, "Oh no."

"Ronaiah, oh, the catfish Ronaiah?"

"Yeah, no, we don't want to hire them."

Back then, I wasn't where I'm at now,

where I'm currently going through my own transition.

I don't really like to look back,

but I now see why… God never saved me.

I was raised in a huge family.

Everything was centered around faith, around family, and football.

Sophomore year, I started as a quarterback.

In our family, everybody played sports.

My dad played at USC.

My dad's brother, he played for the Rams.

And my dad's older cousin, Manu, played for the Niners.

My cousin Marques played for the Raiders.

But I… hate football.

I just wanted to play football out of obedience,

and I wanted to make my dad happy.

But I totally felt this heaviness of fear.

I didn't have that courage to just be like,

"You know what? This is who I am."

I truly believed in my heart, being a natural-born male,

I could never be who I wanted.

That was when I had decided

that I would be able to have that experience

in the life of a female.

Even if it were fake.

And so I created this whole fictional character, Lennay.

There was this girl that went to high school with me,

and I'd seen her around campus.

I was like, "Oh, she's really pretty."

She was a super sweet girl. She was very popular.

And so I used her photos for Lennay.

Even though it's like this whole fake profile,

it was really, like, a lot of how I really am.

My interests. My, uh, taste in music.

It was me with a different name tag,

a different photo.

But as far as everything else,

it was… 100% me.

And then I got my first friend request from a guy.

This is kind of what I want.

It was the start of what became,

literally, a black hole that just consumed my life.

And I didn't care who I was hurting.

I was born and raised in Hawaii.

A small little town on the north side of the island of Oahu.

Laie is what they call it. A special place.

Life is simple.

You know, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is prevalent there.

In Polynesian culture,

you have those three pillars, faith, family, football.

And that's what it is.

He was an incredibly obedient young man.

I mean, the only words that would come out of his mouth was,

"Yes, Dad," or, "Yes, Mom."

Discipline is a huge thing in Polynesian culture,

which is also a huge thing in… in Christian belief,

um, which is a big thing in sports, you know.

So there's a lot of commonalities between everything.

I always told him, "After I'm long gone, the Te'o name now sits with you."

My dad asked me when I was five years old

what I wanted to be.

And I told him I wanted to be the best.

He took it literal, and he trained me.

He would film me run,

and we would spend hours of me just running.

We'd go back on our little computer, and he'd just play it by slowly,

like we gotta tweak this and tweak that.

I mean, there were times after games when he was at Punahou that we came,

we put the cars here, shined the light onto this… to this little work area--

-At night? -Yeah, at about nine o'clock at night.

We're going through basic reads that he missed that night.

Come on, Manti. Let's go!

The purpose for doing football is for your education

because there's no way that we can afford to send you to a Stanford, a UCLA, a USC.

Especially when Dad's bringing home

only $300 every two weeks.

If you don't get a football scholarship, you… you're not going to college.

And so everything that we did was leading towards that.

You have to make it.

The thing that I remember most about Manti as a kid

was just his passion for the game.

Although he's about a foot taller than me, you know, we call ourselves twins,

and I definitely look at him as a brother.

And the values that his parents instilled in him made him great.

He gets pressure. Gonna keep this ball on the ground,

try to pick up the first down, and a big hit. That was Manti Te'o.

For my senior year, I just came in and just took over.

Here's Te'o on the handoff.

Almost loses the football again.

Still trying to get forward yardage. Still loose!

Te'o still on his feet!

Stretches for the first-down marker. He refused to go down.

There's no running , and there's no hiding from this guy.

Manti Te'o, one of the top linebacker prospects

in the nation.

The number one outside linebacker in the nation.

Everybody in the country wants him. He is the number one sought-after linebacker.

We're talking about the beast, Manti Te'o.

- -

To understand Notre Dame's unique place in the landscape of college football,

uh, you have to understand the history a little bit.

Here comes The Fighting Irish…

And that history's built on great success.

…the winningest university in this football century.

A reverse forward pass. There's Shakespeare fading back again.

There it goes. Oh, what a heave!

Millner spots it, and he's wide. The game is over!

Notre Dame has an identity which is absolutely unique,

and I would argue, the most significant brand

in college football.

This is fantastic.

In a very short period of time,

a program that wasn't really known outside the Midwest

became a national football program with a national following.

Houston, 34. Notre Dame, 28.

Montana… throwing.

And it's a touchdown!

A touchdown taken at the corner.

Notre Dame will duly celebrate

a national championship. No doubt.

But following the early '90s, Notre Dame lost its way a bit.

And it didn't enjoy, uh, the same level of success.

Thirty-eight to nothing.

Notre Dame with a stretch of ten losses

in its last fifteen games.

Notre Dame has lost a record nine straight bowls,

winless since New Year's Day of '94.

Notre Dame needs time to recruit personnel.