P.E.F. *Performance Enhancing Fantasy

It is getting to the point that the off-season of our favorite professional sport, college football, is almost as fun as the season itself.

It used to be the off-season of college football was about the recruitment of high school players leading up to The Put On A Hat with Momma Day (National Signing Day). Also, there were the inevitable stories of players committing various felonies and misdemeanors, particularly here in Georgia. It got so bad that I suggested there should be a headline in the sports page of the newspaper: NO UGA PLAYERS ARRESTED THIS WEEK.

Well, a couple of years ago, an Alabama fan, upset that Alabama lost to Auburn  poisoned the iconic oak trees at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn and called up Paul Finebaum’s radio show to brag about it.  Then, last year, Bobby Petrino had a wreck on a motorcycle while riding with a woman who was not Mrs. Bobby Petrino.  The image of Bobby Petrino in a neck brace was probably the highlight of the football season for me.  Now, we have the strange case of Manti Te’o.

                       I know being hurt isn't funny, but.....

In case you have been living under a rock, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o claimed that his grandmother and his girlfriend both happen to die on the same day, right before the Michigan State game. Te’o played one of his greatest games against Michigan State because nothing fires up a player more than having both your Mee-Maw and your soul mate die on the same day.  Then came the revelation last week:  the girlfriend not dead, Yay, she’s alive! No, she’s not because she was never existed. There was never a girl named Lennay Kekua.

                                 Not bad for somebody who isn't real.

Supposedly, Te’o is a victim of “catfishing”, a MTV term young people use for when a person uses the internet to pretend to be something they’re not, like good looking. If you believe Te’o, he fell hook, line and sinker for this girl, who did not exist.

Of course, I am suspicious of Te’o story because my son is the same age as Te’o and I know a lot of guys in that age group. I can say with confidence that most young men’s IQ range between 45 (for the smart ones) to 00 for the average guy. Also, I was a 22 years old at one time and would have killed for a pretend girlfriend, preferably one that looked like Bo Derek.

I’m not sure of a reason why somebody would want to prank a Division I linebacker. Division I linebackers are not known for having a self-deprecating sense of humor and the idea of public humiliation over a girl that did not exist would likely be met with a horse collar tackle if you catch my drift. That’s one of the reasons, I’m not buying Te’o’s claim of innocence.

One theory  being floated around is that Te’o is a homosexual and used the “girlfriend that lived in California” as a way to keep nosy people out of his business. The problem with this theory is that “being gay” is always the reason some people use to explain any type human behavior. You drive fast-you are gay. You drive slow-you are gay. You like to listen to Metallica-you are gay. You don’t like listen to Metallica.-you must be gay. Anyway, if Te’o was gay, somebody would have come out of the closet by now (ha, ha) and claimed to have huddled with Te’o

My theory is: he got together with this other guy and created this “ideal girl” as a goof and it just grew out of control. Why? Because he’s 22 years old and thought it would be funny.

I find it interesting that Te’o used the death of his supposed soul mate as motivation in his game against Michigan State. It was a Performance Enhancing Fantasy or P.E.F. If she had died a week earlier, he might have won the Heisman.