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FILE – In this Nov. 17, 2012, file photo, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o walks off the field following an NCAA college football game against Wake Forest in South Bend, Ind. A story that Te’o’s girlfriend had died of leukemia _ a loss he said inspired him to help lead the Irish to the BCS championship game _ was dismissed by the university Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013, as a hoax perpetrated against the linebacker. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football Season, Is A Hoax

Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school’s football program back to glory, Te’o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te’o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua.

Kekua, 22 years old, had been in a serious car accident in California, and then had been diagnosed with leukemia. SI‘s Pete Thamel described how Te’o would phone her in her hospital room and stay on the line with her as he slept through the night. “Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice,” Thamel wrote.

Upon receiving the news of the two deaths, Te’o went out and led the Fighting Irish to a 20-3 upset of Michigan State, racking up 12 tackles. It was heartbreaking and inspirational. Te’o would appear on ESPN’s College GameDay to talk about the letters Kekua had written him during her illness. He would send a heartfelt letter to the parents of a sick child, discussing his experience with disease and grief. The South Bend Tribune wrote an article describing the young couple’s fairytale meeting—she, a Stanford student; he, a Notre Dame star—after a football game outside Palo Alto.

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Do you think this was all a hoax or a big lie for sympathy?

Watch the video below and tell us what you think?

Notre Dame Football Star Gets Tricked or Is He Lying About Fake Girlfriend’s Death?  was originally published on newsone.com