Josh Shaw asked USC to make change to fabricated hero story

How caught up was Josh Shaw in his own lie? He even called USC officials to make a correction to the fabricated story posted on their website that portrayed him as a hero.

Newsweek published a story Thursday that includes some of the details of how Shaw managed to fool USC officials about how he got hurt.

According to Newsweek, a day after Shaw hurt himself Saturday night falling from a balcony at an apartment complex nearby the school’s campus, he went to the hospital. A USC doctor met him there, and he received treatment on his sprained ankles in the team’s training facility later in the day. They knew pretty early on that he was hurt, but they didn’t know how he got hurt.

School officials met with Shaw on Monday and he told them the story of how he got hurt. They were skeptical and asked him multiple questions, but Shaw confirmed the story multiple times. Shaw even had family members and non-USC folks corroborate his made-up story.

Now here’s the best part: Shaw was so committed to his lie that he called USC to have them change the wording in their story about his heroic act.

From Newsweek’s report:

In the story, since expunged from USC’s site, Shaw is described as landing on the pool deck and then crawling to the pool. Shaw phoned to say that such phrasing was melodramatic, that he had not crawled to the pool, suggesting that the phrase “made his way to the pool” be used instead.

You see, faking a story about jumping to save a drowning nephew in a swimming pool wasn’t too far-fetched, but crawling to the pool was too sensational. Even that was too much of an exaggeration for Shaw.

Words to live by.