What a strange story.

A week ago, in front of television cameras and a packed high school gymnasium, the 6-5, 290-pound offensive guard placed two baseball caps on a table — a Cal Bears cap on his right, an Oregon Ducks cap on his left — and then, after a dramatic pause, put the blue-and-gold Cal hat on his head.

“They really won me over,” Hart told reporters. “Coach [Jeff] Tedford and I talked a lot, and the fact that the head coach did most of the recruiting of me kind of gave me the real personal experience.”

Actually, the Cal head coach barely knew he existed. That’s because there was no scholarship offer. Not from Cal. Not from Oregon. Not from anywhere. Hart made it up. He made everything up.

What began six months ago as a small, ego-driven lie, somehow gained weight and strength and grew into an uncontrollable hoax. It enveloped a school, a town, a family and maybe a future.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 8:39 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.