It wasn't until the morning after, when the tears of exhilaration
started flowing one more time and Brian Te'o's cell phone started
blowing up all over again, that it hit him.
No one in the Te'o family had actually called Notre Dame head coach
Brian Kelly directly late Sunday night to deliver the momentous news
that Te'o's son, junior linebacker Manti Te'o, was returning to school
for his senior year.
Half a continent away and perhaps intuitively, Kelly sensed that this
was the way Te'o's decision, about a dip in the NFL Draft pool a year
early, was headed in the past few weeks. A chain of calls through the
sports information staff found Kelly elated but hardly stunned.
Word that Te'o and best friend since childhood, Irish wide receiver
Robby Toma, had been apartment-hunting spilled out to the more
majestic offices in the Guglielmino Athletics Complex, but that was
all about logistics and contingencies, not about what was in Te'o's
heart.
Which is exactly where the decision ended up being made.
"I'm so proud of him," said Brian Te'o, who watched his son make an
11th-hour switch from USC to Notre Dame based on a leap of faith -- a
started flowing one more time and Brian Te'o's cell phone started
blowing up all over again, that it hit him.
No one in the Te'o family had actually called Notre Dame head coach
Brian Kelly directly late Sunday night to deliver the momentous news
that Te'o's son, junior linebacker Manti Te'o, was returning to school
for his senior year.
Half a continent away and perhaps intuitively, Kelly sensed that this
was the way Te'o's decision, about a dip in the NFL Draft pool a year
early, was headed in the past few weeks. A chain of calls through the
sports information staff found Kelly elated but hardly stunned.
Word that Te'o and best friend since childhood, Irish wide receiver
Robby Toma, had been apartment-hunting spilled out to the more
majestic offices in the Guglielmino Athletics Complex, but that was
all about logistics and contingencies, not about what was in Te'o's
heart.
Which is exactly where the decision ended up being made.
"I'm so proud of him," said Brian Te'o, who watched his son make an
11th-hour switch from USC to Notre Dame based on a leap of faith -- a
