Given his big interview tomorrow, which I won’t watch and don’t have any interest in at this point, I thought I’d just point out that 2-and-a-half years ago I called it correctly regarding his PED usage.
At the time, I also wrote that I’d like to be wrong. I still wish that were the case. I think a world in which a guy with an extraordinary gift who honed it to levels unheard of before him is a better world to live in than the one we are now in, where the guy’s gift was at deception.
One thing I will pay attention to tomorrow is the Manti Te’o press conference where he’ll explain this bizarre girlfriend story. I didn’t follow his final season all that closely, but he seems like a decent kid with a talent for football. I bear him no ill will and thus have no reason to prejudge him. I think it’s perfectly reasonable that he got snookered, badly, and upon realizing it had trouble accepting the humiliating reality. I expect he’ll be owning up to that embarrassment tomorrow as best he can, given his youth and status.
Like Armstrong, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Unlike Armstrong, I’m hopeful that he wasn’t part of this prank. I also think that’s a better world to live in than th alternative.