Saturday,  January 189 2013 • Vol. 13--No. 184 • 37 of 42 •  Other Editions

(Continued from page 36)

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o tells ESPN he was never involved in creating girlfriend hoax

• NEW YORK (AP) -- Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o insisted he had no role in the bizarre hoax involving his "dead" girlfriend and told ESPN on Friday night that he was duped by a person who has since apologized to him.
• In an off-camera interview Friday with ESPN, Te'o said Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a 22-year-old acquaintance who lives in California, contacted him two days ago and confessed to the prank. Deadspin.com first exposed the scheme on Wednesday and indicated Tuiasosopo was involved in it.
• "I wasn't faking it," ESPN quoted Te'o as saying during the 2 1-2 hour interview. "I wasn't part of this. When they hear the facts they'll know. They'll know there is no way I could be a part of this."
• Te'o said he first met Tuiasosopo in person after the Southern California game in November. According to the linebacker, Tuiasosopo told him he was the cousin of Lennay Kekua, the woman who Te'o believed he had fallen for through Internet chats and long phone conversations. But Kekua never existed.
• "Two guys and a girl are responsible for the whole thing," Te'o told ESPN. "According to Ronaiah, Ronaiah's one."
• ___

Armstrong turns emotional in 2nd part of interview, recalling talk with son on defending him

• CHICAGO (AP) -- Lance Armstrong finally cracked.
• Not while expressing deep remorse or regrets, though there was plenty of that in Friday night's second part of Armstrong's interview with Oprah Winfrey.
• It wasn't over the $75 million in sponsorship deals that evaporated over the course of two days, or having to walk away from the Livestrong cancer charity he founded and called his "sixth child." It wasn't even about his lifetime ban from competition, though he said that was more than he deserved.
• It was another bit of collateral damage that Armstrong said he wasn't prepared to deal with.
• "I saw my son defending me and saying, 'That's not true. What you're saying about my dad is not true,'" Armstrong recalled.
• ___


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