The strange, sad story of Manti Te’o gets sadder and stranger, but what seems clear to me right now is that Notre Dame did a very poor job of handling things. They seemed to think the situation was important enough to hire a team of investigators to get to the bottom of it all, but then decided to step back and that it was “Te’o's story to tell.” Any communications professional should have strongly counseled their student athlete to get the whole story out there as soon as possible, and to be there with him to help him through the public revelation. By not doing so, they failed basic crisis management, making Te’o and themselves look bad. Of course they end up having the press conference they should have had in the first place, but by doing it in a reactive rather than proactive way they look like they are hiding something. And perhaps they are.
Manti Te’o Hoax Disclosure Was Up to Him, Notre Dame Says – NYTimes.com.