OPINION

By Matt Hayes

updated 4:27 a.m. ET July 28, 2007

Matt Hayes

We're all insecure in our own way. We spend our lives agonizing over a flaw we can't ignore yet often refuse to acknowledge.

Consider, then, the courage it took for Charlie Weis to stand up and unfurl his deepest insecurities for the world to see.

Say what you want about the brash and bombastic Notre Dame coach. Call him arrogant and overbearing, pompous and patronizing. After the events of last week's court proceedings in Boston, here's something else you can call him: the bigger man. And I don't mean the fatter man.

Charlie Weis is a large man -- 300-plus pounds large. He's overly private and protective about his lifelong battle of the bulge and rarely says two words about it in public. But he made it clear in his book, No Excuses, that his decision to undergo gastric bypass surgery -- a procedure that nearly killed him in 2002 -- was made because of health-related issues. And, well, because he was tired of being the "pudge-ball."

Vanity, you see, walks arm in arm with insecurity.

Yet there was Weis last week, standing naked with his insecurities revealed and reliving a painful, terrifying time as the focus of a malpractice case against doctors he says botched his care. Why would he do it? Because sometimes we do things for the greater good. We stand for what we believe no matter the personal -- and in this case, very public -- cost.

I doubt very seriously that Weis -- he of the estimated 10-year, $35 million contract -- is in dire need of a dime. He is seeking monetary damages for the alleged malpractice, but this lawsuit reeks of principle over payoff. This is a life lesson -- to his family and his team.

I'm not judge and jury, and I don't know where the case will go now that the judge has declared a mistrial. But I can look beyond the arguments and see the bigger picture here. What better way to show your team the value of holding firm in your convictions than by setting the example that you can't be shaken? Insecurities be damned.

Championship teams have an unbreakable chemistry, a soulful edge that kicks adversity's tail at every turn. The Irish have won 19 games and played in two BCS bowls in two seasons under Weis. Yet there is no elite team in the nation with less of an identity, with less fortitude, in big games.

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Two losses to bitter rival Southern California, another to rival Michigan and two more in BCS bowl games. And a whole lot of wins against a whole lot of nothing in between.

There's no way Weis is backing down now. Not in the courtroom and surely not on the field. There's only one way to go from here.

Insecurities be damned.

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