My ACL Reconstruction

Twelve hours from now, I'll be having my ACL reconstruction surgery! This whole experience feels like an adventure to me, so I'm pretty excited for this surgery and the next couple weeks of rehab (see the "what I'm looking forward to section below). I also obviously can't wait until I'm fully recovered so I can get out on the field and play! Here's a rundown of some of the details of tomorrow.

Hospital - Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital

This hospital is located in downtown Indy. Too bad Game 7 of Pacers-Heat isn't in Indy, or we would be able to hear the awesome cheering and rioting after the Pacers beat the Heat.

Surgeon - Doctor Shelbourne

I found him on this US News page of top orthopedic surgeons in Indiana. According to the ranking, Dr. Shelbourne's deemed "among the top 1% in the nation in his specialty." He specializes in knee surgeries and have done tons of ACL reconstructions. He's the Purdue team surgeon and even knows Dr. James Andrews! Pretty cool.

Procedure - ACL Reconstruction with Opposite Knee Patellar Tendon Graft

Basically, they're going to take the Patellar tendon from my good right knee and put it into my left knee as an ACL. The patellar tendon graft is the what AP and RGIII and most professional athletes get. Because the graft is coming from my opposite leg, I will need to rehab both knees to fully recover, and the patellar tendon of the graft should heal completely.

Surgery Timeline

6:30 AM - Check in at hospital
9:30 AM - Surgery
11:30 AM - Wake up with a new ACL

I'll be in the hospital until around 6 AM the next morning, so sorry ahead of time if I don't respond to the various texts of support that I am expecting from you all.

What I'm looking forward to after the surgery

- Pacers/Heat Game 7
- Reading a Dance of Dragons
- Reading Metaxes' Bonhoeffer
- Not working for 2 weeks and spending time with family

Previous Posts

My Torn ACL

Shattered Pride

Blown Away by a Wedding

Three weeks ago, I flew to NJ to attend a college friend's wedding, the first in an upcoming season of them. Everything about the wedding was awesome - witnessing the wedding, seeing old friends, and watching Michigan beat Syracuse in the Final Four. But more than anything, I was blown away by the love displayed at the wedding. Here's the journal entry that I wrote on my way back to Fort Wayne. Happy three week anniversary, Ann and Andrew!

"On the plane right now, on the ride back to AA. First time I'm going to be able to think and reflect on the wedding. My overall impression of it is how in the world can two people love each other that much? Their affection for one another was plain and evident, and I couldn't help but be down into the deep emotions of the wedding, tearing up as Ann cried while Andrew prayed over them. How deep a love and friendship that they have! It's a love and a relationship so deep that I'm certain I've never experienced it before, and I even have a hard time imagining feeling that way about someone else. They way Andrew looked at her, spoke to her, and even touched her reflected a love and care clearly deeper than one I have ever felt in my life. I must admit that for moments here and there, I was slightly jealous of Andrew, marrying a beautiful and God-loving girl. But more than anything, if I was jealous, I was jealous of Andrew's character, of seeing the man that he had become. His love and gentleness, dignity and integrity are traits that I only have shadows of. He is a man for me to imitate, though it may be painful for me to admit.

I particularly liked their vows, when they vowed to love each other "second only to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." And my oh my. If their love for one another is that deep, I can only imagine their love for Christ! Indeed, the wedding ceremony and reception were gloriously Christ-centered and slyly evangelistic, but I imagine and envy the reflected depth of a personal relationship with their Savior. Interestingly enough, their wedding revived my spirit, my desire to know my Creator, rather than a revival of a desire to know romance again, as one might expect. In fact, the seeming transcendence of their love for one another makes me wonder if I even have the capacity within to love as they do. And for this reason, I fully believe that marriage is truly a miracle, only achieved through the miraculous grace of God.

It certainly is no coincidence that I have been going through Ephesians 5 for my quiet times, as I am extremely encouraged that Christ is the groom of the Church. This imagery hasn't meant much to me in the past, but seeing Andrew has deepened, even if only slightly, my appreciation for this. For if Andrew, a mere human, loves his wife as much as he does, I can only imagine not imagine how much Christ loves the church. If the love shared between two humans can be so deep and profound, how much more does Christ love us! Indeed, the imagery of Christ as the groom and the church as His bride is appropriate and fitting, but I have never understood it much until now!

Going to Ann and Andrew's wedding was such a blessing, revealing a transcendent, amazing love that I have yet to experience pointing to an even greater, amazing, and incomprehensible love that is bestowed without obligation, given without request. And if I am to remain single, my love for my Savior must mimic - no - surpass the love displayed on Saturday afternoon."

Missing Memories

[Sort of a meta-note: Look for me to update here more than I have the last few months, mainly because I need something to occupy the time I used to spend exercising.]

For some reason, yesterday night as I laid in bed before I fell asleep, I was trying to remember what my high school was like. I tried to remember where my homeroom was, where my classes were, and where my lockers were. And for the life of me, I couldn't. I tried to walk my brain through the hallways of the school as I tried to piece together the random memories I still had of MHS, but I was coming up blank.

And just like the crybaby I seem to have become these last few weeks, I got really emotional that I could barely remember the building that I spent 4 years walking through. To be honest, I wasn't really sure why it made me so upset that I couldn't remember anything about my high school, as I barely even reminisce on my  high school experience. Being really tired probably contributed to it, along with the fact that I had just watched Spirited Away again before going to bed. After all, I certainly didn't want to lose the memory of who I was and become a slave to Ubaba forever! I guess the lingering emotions from the movie compounded with late-night irrationality made my incomplete recall feel like I had lost a part of myself that could never recover again. [Actually this fear of the irretrievability of thoughts is the reason I started my blog! Check out my first post ever!]

After I spent a few minutes lamenting my missing memories, I decided to test myself and to see if I could mentally walk through different places, like my house, MCCC, and how to get to ShopRite and Maggie's house from back home. It's actually quite amazing how the brain is able to be it's own little Google Maps, complete with StreetView and everything. And I tried again to do a walkthrough of Manalapan High, but I just couldn't piece together a full picture. I would mentally walk through a hallway, only to reach its end, staring into a black void that my brain's Google Maps refused to load. I tried to recall how I got to key locations of the school such as the auditorium, gym, and cafeteria, but as before, the dots just wouldn't connect.

It's a weird feeling - knowing that you once knew something but no longer know it at all and have no hope of remembering it again (making it significantly different from the "tip of the tongue" experience). And it's kind of scary acknowledging that my memory of things past - of who I was and what I did - will continue to fade as I grow older. It really does feel like you're losing pieces of yourself little by little, and there's really not much you can do to stop those memories from fading. I wonder if after we die, we will have our memories fully restored and will be able to watch our lives back in rewind. I know that we will need to give an accounting for all that we do in our lives, but I can't say for certain if we will carry those memories with us in eternity. And really, I don't even know if would want to.

What do you guys think? Will we have a fully self-enlightened consciousness and recall the things before death or will we be so busy chilling with Jesus that we don't even bother remembering the things of this world?

Shattered Pride

Yesterday, I blew out my knee again - even worse than the first time. Because my knee felt pretty strong and I could lightly jog easily, I decided to play some easy, casual ultimate with people. I don't really remember what happened, but one moment I was catching the disc, and the next moment I felt my knee pop multiple times like bubble wrap, and I was on the ground again in excruciating pain. After the initial blinding pain faded, the emotions of what just happened struck me hard, much harder than even when I initially tore my ACL. I wept as I was carried off the field and wept as I sat on the sideline. I wept as I broke the news to my mom, and wept alone in my apartment.

Trying to process everything, I've been puzzled by the uncontrollable emotion springing from within me, especially because I didn't ever feel this way about the ACL tear. In a God-given moment of lucidity, I realized that even more than the grief of a broken knee, I am reeling from a broken pride. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a supreme, and often sinful, sense of self-confidence. A self-confidence that had me believing that I would beat the odds and not require surgery for a full recovery. A self-confidence that gave me the illusion of invincibility. Before yesterday, I truly did not believe that something like this would happen. But it did.

And in an instant, all the remaining pride I had in me was shattered. The pride in my seemingly fast recovery. Pop. Gone. The pride of my admirably high spirits despite my difficult circumstances. Pop. Gone. The pride in my tough-guy attitude and grittiness. Pop. Gone. I was reduced from a smiling, happy, positive man with his held high to a physically and emotionally broken boy, slumped over and crying on the sideline.

And I hate it. I hate being weak. I hate that I cried in front of everyone, and I hate that I killed the mood on the field. I hate that I couldn't do what I thought was the "mature", "Christian" thing to do, and to smile through the disappointment because I trusted God. I hate that I had been self-confident when people asked me how my knee was doing, only to have my ironically optimistic answers thrown back in my face. I hate the conspicuous clanking of my crutches that herald the arrival of a cripple, and I hate having to repeatedly explain my pitiful situation to well-meaning colleagues. Even worse than being weak, I hate being weak in front of other people.

So what do you do when your true, weak self is exposed for what it is? What do you do when everything that goes wrong is your own fault, and you have no one else to blame? What do you do when guilt, shame, and regret unceasingly haunt you? I'm not going to pretend like I know the answers, but I'm glad I know One who does. To God be the glory.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

My Torn ACL

Playing sports and excelling at them has always been important to me. I actually remember asking my mom as a child if we would be able to play basketball in heaven because in my mind, heaven didn't seem like that great of a place if we didn't get to play sports!

Not being able to play sports was literally my worst nightmare as a kid. I'm not sure if this is common, but when I was younger, I would attempt to think of the worst thing that could possibly happen to me then fantasize about this contrived, horrible hypothetical situation. As a young person, the worst possible thing that could happen to me, or so I thought, would be if I somehow lost my leg (or legs) and would not be able to run, jump, or play soccer and manhunt ever again. Even my childhood crush(es) doting on me and comforting me, along with all the king's horses and all the king's men, would not be able to console and comfort me in these somewhat twisted daydreams. I would imagine an empty life - one where I wouldn't ever be able to play any sports or have any fun, and one where I was useless and worthless as a person. You see, to me, my greatest quality was not my dashing good looks or intellectual supremacy - it was my above-average athleticism and unparalleled foot speed.

So you can imagine the disappointment and anxiety that flooded my mind when I was sitting on the bench after feeling my knee pop and falling down in excruciating pain, watching my team win the overnight ultimate hat tournament in Grand Rapids. I watched my athletic career flash before my eyes, remembering all the "great" things I had achieved athletically and all the even greater goals and plans I would no longer be able to accomplish. At the time, I didn't know how bad the injury was, but I could only imagine the worst - that I had a torn ACL, and unless I was supernatural and had some Purple Jesus inside of me, I would never be the same again.

All in all, I've been in pretty high spirits despite my injury. Halfway through my 6-week physical therapy rehab, my physical recovery has been promising and I'm naively optimistic about my recovery. After some reflection, I don't think that my athletic ability is a real, powerful idol in my life as it obviously was to a younger me. However, the seemingly fine line between grief and idolization still confuses me. Even though athletic ability no longer determines my self-worth, it is still a large part of my identity, especially among the people I've gotten to know in Fort Wayne, who for the first few weeks of pickup called me "Speedy G" because of my Lumberjacks jersey/shirt that I wore the first time I went. At what point does my fear of athletic inability become reflective of misaligned affections? It's hard to say.

I was hit extremely hard emotionally this week by my injury, perhaps the most emotional I got since the doctor broke the bad news of a completely torn ACL to me. On Tuesday, it was 75 and beautiful out, and the smell of the air just reminded me of ultimate. The smell of warm air and the feeling of the slightly damp, warm breeze - I wish I could more fully describe it to you, but it all just reminded me of ultimate. This is the time of the year that I usually get extremely excited to go outside and play, but this year I can't, especially if I get surgery over the summer. I guess I'll just have to find other things to occupy my time and affections for the next couple months.

Sorry if this post is a bit melo-dramatic. I'm actually doing quite well physically and emotionally most of the time. I guess I just wanted a chance to tell the interesting story of how my worst nightmare as a child actually (kind of) came true!

Utopia, IRC, and Global Friendships

Some of you may know the old school in-browser, text-based game called Utopia. I picked up Utopia again around a year ago after getting an email from them, landing in a super-ghetto kingdom that worked its way up to be a decent kingdom. The king was insistent on using IRC for kingdom communication, which has let to real relationships and conversations with the different players in our kingdom (which is Moar Pink Kittehs Nao aka MPKN).

And it's been awesome. It's awesome to get to "meet" people from all over the world. I got to know people from the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Israel, China, etc. Urbana, along with Paul Borthwick's globally-minded missions book, grew in me a desire to get to know people from different parts of the world, as I became convinced that I could make a global impact without even going overseas, as the displacement of peoples and immigration along with the worldwide connectedness via the Internet is bringing the world to our fingertips.

Using IRC to connect with people through the game has been priceless. As I'm typing this up right now, a veteran in our kingdom from the Netherlands is chatting with a newbie from Australia, as they just found out that they are both marine biologist divers, and actually worked on the same small island at the same time (though they didn't actually meet there)!! I must admit that this is what has finally driven me to stop procrastinating and write this post that I've had sitting in my head for some time now. It's just been really fun listening in on a British guy and an Australian guy argue about how racist Australians are, and it was fun for me to argue with both of them to argue about our American measurement system.

It's just been a joy getting to know people in other countries. It's been fun hearing about different jobs that people have, from the "boring" ones to the interesting stuff - sports rehab with the disabled, coral reef restoration, construction work, etc. It's awesome hearing about other cultures and ways of living - to hear about an Israeli's opinion on Americans, a Vietnamese's experience of living Australia, and a Westerner's approach to learning Chinese while in China. It was surprising how good everyone's English was, even if English wasn't their first language, and it is also very interesting to observe linguistic differences in the way we all speak/type English.

My kingdom is in a rebuilding phase right now, as we've had a couple of tough losses these last few months. A bunch of our previous players have left the game or are taking a break from it. It's been hard losing contact with real people that I've talked to and built friendships with, knowing that I may never speak to them again. As stupid as it might sound, the relationships we build are real - people share real-life struggles like disease and grief. Maybe I'm just more prone to relational attachment so losing players and rebuilding the kingdom has been tough on me emotionally, but I'm so thankful for this opportunity to get to build real relationships with people from all around the world. It's been awesome.

[In the slight chance that any of you, whether veterans or newbies, are looking for a Utopia kingdom, ask for fobbymaster on #pinkkittehs on UtoNet, or just holler at me.]

So this just happened. I mention church every so often (to the collective internet groans of my kingdom mates), but I don't think I've ever had anyone say "Jesus may bless ur fuckin ass before" to me before!

fobbymaster: i gtg sleep. just past midnight, and i gotta get up for church tomorrow 
Israeli: holy man!!
Israeli: jesus may bless ur fuckin ass (: 
fobbymaster: lol  gotta get my Jesus time.
Israeli: iam jew 
Israeli: but! 
Israeli: go get ur jesus time (:
fobbymaster: haha. so was jesus.
fobbymaster: lolol
Israeli: send a pray for me too (: 
Israeli: any god will do 
fobbymaster: hehe okay
Israeli: gn mate
fobbymaster: talk to you tomorrow

The Harlem Shake and Cultural Sensitivity

If you haven't seen the "Harlem Reacts to Harlem Shake" video, watch it below.



For all you Chinese people, how would you react to a party where a bunch of white people dressed in stereotypical Asian garb and spoke with Chinese accents? [This actually happened at Duke.] Or maybe a Chinese version of the Harlem Dance - perhaps a "Ribbon Dance" where a bunch of white people dressed in panda suits threw rolls of toilet paper around and waved it around as some sort of ribbon? How would you react if this video went viral and there were "flash mobs" of people doing the "Chinese Ribbon Dance", and the only thing people know the Chinese Ribbon Dance to be is large groups of strangely dressed white  people and a lot of toilet paper everywhere?

For those of you who don't feel any connection to your Asian heritage, you may not feel  strongly, but I'm getting riled up even just writing that. You see, when we "borrow" things from other people and cultures or label them a certain way, it is easy for them to feel like their culture is being attacked or made fun of, especially if it is a group of people that has been marginalized and picked on through the decades and centuries. We need to realize that even if we don't take things seriously, others might, so we need to be aware of how our actions are perceived and received by others.

It's not enough to be well-intentioned if we are ignorant. And yes, we are all ignorant about some things, so when our ignorance is pointed out, we shouldn't just brush it off, remaining ignorant. So yes, the Harlem Shake videos are fun and not intended to be a representation of Harlem, but if there are people in Harlem who feel dissed by it, we need to listen to them and stop it. Ignoring those who feel offended and writing them off as uptight is tempting, as it's much harder to admit to ignorance, but doing so would be a big mistake. Ignoring them would be ... wait for it ... ignorant.

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

- Philippians 2:3-4

Highly recommended post - Some People Have Just Never Had To Take a Joke

Why I want the 49ers to win the Super Bowl

I'm not gonna lie. I don't have much invested in the Super Bowl next week, but I'm going to be rooting for the 49ers. Here's a bunch of subjective, personal reasons with no real objective basis for why I'll be pulling for the Niners.

Colin Kaepernick upset undefeated Boise State in an epic overtime game

This was easily one of the best college football games I've ever watched. Because the game was on the West coast, it went late, to around 1 AM on the East coast. My mom and sister were already in bed, and my dad and I were watching the game. After the Boise kicker missed the game-tying field goal, we couldn't contain our enthusiasm, despite not really being able to scream or make any noise, for fear of waking up the rest of the family. So enjoy this video of jumping around and heavy breathing.



Jim Harbaugh is a Michigan man

Sure, he publicly criticized Michigan's academics, and sure, he turned down the Michigan coaching job after Rich Rod, but he's still a Michigan man.

Ravens players are annoying.

I'm sorry, but I'm just not a fan of Bernard Pollard, Ed Reed, and - yes, I'm going to say it - Ray Lewis. First of all, Bernard Pollard. I'm going to say it. I don't like players that injure other players. The line of intentionality is grey and blurry, but I find it hard to believe that it's all a coincidence. Also, what he said this week about the NFL not existing is hypercritical to the max. He says that the league should "lighten up" on the rules, that injuries are expected, and that the only thing that hasn't happened yet is someone dying on the field, but he says that's what players signed up for. Let me ask you, Pollard. Which is worse for the game: more rules protecting players that changes the game, or someone dying on the field?

Mad respect for Ed Reed and Ray Lewis, but I just can't say I like them. The whole emotional thing is a bit over the top for me, especially as their defense this year really wasn't very good. I know my opinion really doesn't matter, but I seriously think there might be something mentally not right with Ray Lewis especially. Also that whole thing where Ray Lewis might have killed a guy? I don't know. It certainly doesn't make me like him more.

Oh and while I'm busy dishing out the cheapshots at Ravens players, I've got to say it. Joe Flacco is not an elite quarterback.

I've never liked the AFC North.

I've just always despised the AFC North, especially the Steelers and Ravens. I'm not completely sure why, but I think I've just always considered them constantly overrated and overhyped. It probably has to do with their "storied" histories which I wasn't alive to witness, but I've felt like the reputation of the Steelers and the Ravens is constantly much greater than they actually are. I've also grown tired of the "hard-hitting" defense shtick, as their vaunted defenses are often much worse than advertised, and much, much dirtier than reported. In my head, the Steelers and Ravens defensive players (plus Hines Ward), are just dirty players. I'm sorry, but I can't stand Troy Polumalu for so many different reasons. And don't even get me started on James Harrison.

Also, the fact that the media always hypes up their rivalry has always bugged me, because I just feel like it's really not such a big deal. Sure, it's always an important division game, but I honestly don't see the passion and mutual hatred by the fans for this "rivalry" like I do for other great sports rivalries. Maybe I just feel that the Steelers/Ravens rivalry threatens the supremacy of the Eagles/Giants rivalry that I love. Who knows. All I know is that when watching the Steelers and Ravens play each other and other teams, outside of the 2005 Steelers, I'm rarely impressed.

Here's another cheapshot. Big Ben isn't an elite quarterback either. Winning rings doesn't make you elite. Neither does raping girls. Okay. No more cheap shots. Except for this one last video.



Go get 'em, Colin Kaepernick, Jim Harbaugh, and the San Francisco 49ers!

Practical Humility - Peer Reviews

This week is my one-year anniversary at working at Raytheon. It's been a great, fun, productive year. With the help of my awesome co-workers and great boss, I've learned a lot of great engineering skills and best practices the job. Because the work environment is so different from the school environment, I've also learned a lot about myself this last year.

I was once again confronted with my inability to receive criticism. To be honest, I've never considered myself bad at receiving criticism, especially spiritual criticism, because in general, anything anyone says to me about my character is bound to be somewhat true. "Caleb, you're too proud." Yeap. "You don't treat people well enough." Yeap. "You should spend more time concentrating on God." Yeap.

The pride of the inability to receive criticism was revealed to me through one of the key steps of our software development - peer reviews. For those of you who don't know, for electronic peer review, reviewers have the ability to add "Remarks", which are sometimes comments/questions but usually defects about specific items in the code, and for every remark, you're sent an email. So let's set the stage. After a few months of doing testing,making minor fixes to code here and there, and "helping out" with various tasks, I was finally given my first real programming task. Super exicted, I make the design and code it up. Then I send it out for peer review, like my boss said.

And it got blasted. The emails with "A new remark has been added for Peer Review XX" came pouring into my inbox, each with the little "ding ding" notification. Some of them were real mistakes I made here or there, but most of them were style issues and that my code didn't conform to the style of the code already there. And that was hard to swallow. For you non-programmers, just like everything else, there are a lot of personal preferences in programming - preferred variable names, capitalization schemes, code structures, etc. And it was hard to hear that the piece of code, which I thought was beautiful and elegant, needed to be chopped up and altered to what I thought was less beautiful and elegant.

I tried to resist changing my code, emailing my coworkers in response to specific remarks, defensively trying to justify my code. One of my coworkers noticed my frustration and came over and basically told me that he understands my frustration, that none of the remarks were personal, and that it's just a necessary part of our software development process. For some reason, I had been blind to my own emotions and it was only when he came to talk to me that I suddenly realized how upset I had become.

Learning to accept and even welcome criticism has been a long process, as I take a lot of pride in my work, but I can say that I no longer get upset over remarks in peer reviews. Actually, I like getting them, because it means that someone is looking at my work!

Why I believe Manti Te'o

Those of you who I've talked to about this know that I've always thought that Manti Te'o was more guilty than innocent. But after I watched Jeremy Schaap report after having a 2.5 hour sit-down interview with Manti Te'o [story and video here], I now firmly believe that Manti Te'o was indeed the victim of a hoax (though obviously you're all welcome to disagree, as I could yet be proven wrong). Here's why.

Manti claimed to have only been in "intense" communication with her since April, when she claimed to be in a car crash.

This makes things much more believable to me. If April was actually the starting point for their emotional connection, it is much more reasonable to me that he didn't see her in the 5 months before she "died" in September. It's hard for me to see someone in relationship for 3 years without calling it quits because one side won't let the other see them, but I can definitely see something like this happening for around 8 months.

Manti claimed some crazy stuff that is hard to make up.

In the interview, Te'o said that when he got the call on December 6th from "Kekua", she claimed that she was in hiding from "drug people", and I guess she needed to fake her death or something. If Manti was really faking this relationship and really in on the hoax on December 6th, why in the world would he be telling the media this crazy story that he actually admitted to kind of believing? We know immediately after hearing it that this is total BS that a hoaxster would say to a victim, but I fail to see the motivation behind Manti saying something that unbelievable.

Manti Te'o's claimed response is exactly what we should expect from someone in his position.

In the interview, Te'o admitted that it wasn't until two days ago that he actually believed that Kekua didn't exist, and it's easy to say, "No way. How dumb are you?" and "Even after she called you after supposedly being dead?", but to be honest, in Manti's shoes, I don't think I would be any different. If you've been "inseparable on the phone", as Schaap put it, for half a year, and truly loved the person who you thought was on the other end of the line, wouldn't you be in a state of total confusion and denial too? Even though we from the outside think that Manti should have woken up and realized that he'd been duped immediately, we all know that feelings don't work that way. Relationships don't work that way. We believe what we want to believe, and can often be in denial about the state of a relationship and hold on to something that we know is either fading or gone completely. And that's exactly what Manti claims to have gone through. This, to me, is much more believable than him "all of a sudden" realizing that she was fake after she called him claiming that she was in hiding from drug lords.

Manti's response is completely consistent with his known personality.

Is it really surprising that the emotional leader of a team would become too emotionally attached to a person he never met? Is it really possible that he gave something his 100% at a relationship, even though he didn't know exactly what was going on? Is it that unthinkable that a player who's unquenchable passion is his game got played by his own passion? And is it possible that the ND AD was actually truthful when he called Te'o "the most trusting person I know"?

"Love" blinds people. Catfishes are possible.

This, I find, is the major stumbling block for people who have a hard time believing that Manti was actually the victim: They don't see how someone could fall for this trick. And to you all I say, you better believe it, because people fall for it all the time. Love and desire for love blinds people, and it's not just catfishes. It's keeping dead relationships alive. It's staying in abusive relationships. It's believing "he said he's going to change". As we've all learned in the last few days, people fall for catfishes. Why would it be any different for Manti Te'o?