NEW YORK -- A little less than three hours before the biggest moment of his football career yet, Manti Te'o walked onto a stage in a hotel ballroom wearing a suit and a leafy, green and gold lei as a Heisman Trophy finalist.
He was asked to think back to another December moment, one year earlier, when the Notre Dame linebacker spurned the NFL for one more year in South Bend. He was asked if he ever could have imagined this.
"Not in a million years," Te'o said at a news conference with fellow finalists Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M and Collin Klein of Kansas State.
"When I decided to come back, it was just to get better and improve my own game and just enjoy experiences and memories I could create with my team and my family. I never thought I'd create memeories in New York, let alone create memories Jan. 7 in Miami."
Indeed, Te'o has long said that hoisting a crystal ball trophy after the BCS championship game would trump hoisting a Heisman Trophy on Saturday night.
So there is one more seismic moment to come, but for now, suspense and nerves revolved around Te'o beating out Manziel -- the freshman phenom known as Johnny Football -- who seems to be a prohibitive favorite in all straw polls.
"Obviously I want to win," Te'o said. "I didn't want to come here to get second. I want to win. And I want to win because I want that honor and attention not only for me but my family. I'm not just me. I represent a whole bunch of people. It will bring a lot of honor and attention and love to the people I represent. That's my whole thing."
And then, at last, Te'o will be able to get back to the business of football. On Saturday, for the first time in a hectic week, he took a nap. Now he just wants to take himself back to the practice field to prepare for Alabama.
"My mind is all on the national championship and winning that," Te'o said. "Today, I got the chance to take a nap for the first time. So I took a nice two-hour nap and woke up and worked out for an hour and a half, jumped in the shower and got ready for this event. It was the perfect day.
"For some reason, I'm not nervous. I'm not nervous at all. I'm more excited. I'm just happy to be here. I know back home, everybody's watching. I find joy in that."
bchamilton@tribune.com
Twitter @ChiTribHamilton
Notre Dame's Te'o on Heisman: 'I didn't come here to get second'
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Notre Dame's Te'o on Heisman: 'I didn't come here to get second'
