be no need to offer any forgiveness, there would be no rational reason to think of Manti as being “honorable” — instead Manti would still be the beneficiary of mass public sympathy and media.

I feel bad for Manti in what must have been a humiliating experience but there is plenty of evidence that Manti and his parents were clearly using the fake girlfriend as a ploy for publicity. First off, very few athletes ever even mention their relationships even with longtime legitimate real girlfriends let alone do athletes bring them up as their inspiration and play their relationships up in the media.

Any way you slice it, Manti comes out of this still looking strange for having mentioned a girlfriend he’d never met to the media — hoax or not. Who never actually meets someone and then goes and embellishes about that someone to the media?