Whether Manti Te'o, the star linebacker for Notre Dame University, was the victim of a cruel hoax or was, to some degree, complicit in his dead girlfriend saga will be of little consequence to human society. Of more significance in this bizarre tragedy is our rush to anoint heroes (usually for our own benefit and gratification) and then to discard them without ever truly understanding those individuals.
The initial revelation that Te'o's girlfriend had died of leukemia, just as his national celebrity was taking shape, was grasped and exploited by the sports media, Notre Dame and fans across the nation though few made any effort to investigate the facts. Now that we know his online girlfriend did not exist, we cannot wait to ridicule our American hero, distancing ourselves from this once magical figure; of course, we know little about the details, including the personal factors that may have made Te'o especially vulnerable to the hoax and/or willing to participate.
Regardless of what facts may eventually surface, Manti Te'o has already lost his hero status in the eyes of the public and has now been labeled either a conniving self-promoter or an immature buffoon. Te'o must live with the consequences of his mistakes and the rest of us must acknowledge our misguided tendency to anoint heroes based on superficial information and then punish them when they prove to be all too human.
