<p>[Highlights</a> of Manti Te’o interview with Jeremy Schaap - ESPN](<a href=“http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8859544/highlights-manti-teo-interview-jeremy-schaap]Highlights”>Highlights of Manti Te'o interview with Jeremy Schaap - ESPN)
Read the transcript of the interview. My child at ND has met Manti, and they know people in common. Manti grew up in an incredibly sheltered Mormon family. There is a a naivete about him that is not typical of many college students. He is a sweet kid and wears his heart on his sleeve. It is easy to imagine how he could fall for a girl with so many problems. Being a student at ND and playing football is a pretty heavy time commitment, so investigating someone you met online and knew casually for awhile would not be a priority. I also don’t think anyone, especially Manti, could imagine that the news media would make the dying girlfriend story the frenzied headline that it became. He really thought she had died on the same day as his grandmother, so his grief was real even if the girlfriend wasn’t. He used the grief constructively and inspired the team. It’s humiliating to him, but he did nothing wrong, in my estimation as a parent. I’m surprised that he is so forgiving of the people who did this - I would be mad as h***!!! As a parent, I would be furious at anyone who would do this to my child.</p>