It's necessary toughness that's the real issue here.
ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas had to rise and fire long before sunrise Saturday morning to join a collection of bleary eyed UCLA fans at Pauley Pavilion, brought in to supply the background atmosphere for a "College GameDay" studio show that started at 7 a.m.
The fans had it tough, too, with a 5 a.m. call to start filling the arena.
Maybe tougher for Bilas was having to circle back to a courtside seat and break down the Bruins' game against Arizona some 12 hours later for ESPN's coverage.
Then again, Bilas knows tough.
He's used 254 pages to write his own definition of it in a book, "Toughness: Developing True Strength on and off the Court" ($26.95, New American Library), which comes out Tuesday.

 Before Saturday's game, we shot the Duke grad out of the old Rolling Hills High a few tough-minded questions about what he's trying to accomplish with this book which, by our definition, should never be issued in soft-cover:
QUESTION: The book, with the forward written by your former coach Mike Krzyzewski, was the result of the tremendous reaction to a column you did for ESPN.com four years ago. What sparked that initial dissertation in trying to define "toughness"?
ANSWER: It was something I saw in a basketball game where a player did something more bullying than tough, and it was described as "Boy, what a tough
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player." I thought right away: That's not what it means. I wrote the story in no time - it hardly felt like work, just bang. I just submitted it, not even expecting it to go up. But when it did I couldn't believe the responses - coaches, front-office people, service men, pilots. Hundreds of them, from all walks of life.Q: "Toughness," as you explain, is more an umbrella term that has many subsets - responsibility, resiliency, ownership, concentration, maturity - and all of them can be learned. What's the toughest part in having people relearn the concept?
A: It's about breaking it down and thinking about what goes into it. I didn't necessarily think about when I was growing up or started playing for Coach K how important something like concentration was. That requires toughness. It's not just enough showing up every day, it's showing up ready to achieve and fully prepare mentally and physically for that day. You have to be mentally tough enough for that task, and then move onto the next play.
So much of the stories I used are about things that happened in my life and where I've fallen short. Failing doesn't make you a failure. Not getting up after failure makes you a failure, or not addressing it and getting better from it. All of us have challenges to face in your daily life, your work life, your family life and the toughness you have is in how you meet those, not that somehow the really tough people don't see things as a challenge.
Q: Ben Howland has had to have tough skin as a coach at UCLA - for all kinds of reasons. How tough do you believe it is to be a college coach in today's landscape?
A: I think it's far more difficult for teams and coaches to deal with pressure points than in the past. Twenty-five years ago, there were no cellphones or the Internet. The locker room was closed, so things said stayed there. With all criticism being immediate now, it's important to have a thick skin.
The way I've done it with my job - which is sometimes similar to a coach - when you say something and there's a reaction to it on Twitter or talk radio, the first thing I ask myself is if the criticism is right, so I can address it and learn from it. But if it's unreasonable, I just dismiss it. In a large measure, our jobs are about criticism. We dole it out, so you ought to be able to take it.
Q: When you think of the word "toughness," can you apply it to this UCLA team?
A: I think so. In different measures with different players, and then a collective toughness. Shabazz Muhammad has dealt with NCAA issues, injury, criticism. That doesn't mean he's not a good teammate. It's hard being a player, when they have a defense on them trying to stop them from what they're trying to accomplish.
They're young players who shouldn't expect to be perfect, but they're battling through it. A high-profile player on a high profile team in Los Angeles is a difficult thing. Especially when you're playing under all those (championship) banners (at Pauley Pavilion).
Q: Muhammad, it's assumed, is only there one year before going to the NBA. You wonder how much more valuable it would be to stay and learn more about toughness in a four-year lesson instead of leaving as a teenager. In today's college basketball landscape, how possible is that?
A: It is possible but we live in a culture of skipping steps. When I was in college, you didn't see players in a hurry to skip steps. That's not because we were tougher or had our priorities in order on a higher plane. Not at all. What's happened is a lot more money is available. First picks way back when didn't make this kind of money. They called it "hardship" because you had no money. You never saw your peers doing it back then, either. It was more extra-ordinary.
Now the guys these guys played against in high school are already in the NBA. Some of them are doing very well. So why not me? Shabazz has to be tough enough now to focus on what's important now. The best thing he can do for his future is play and win now. You have to be tough enough to keep your circle small and take care of what's important first.
Q: Does it make it tougher or easier in everyday life when people find you went to Duke?
A: Both. The positive is, it's like buying a stock and having it blow up for nothing you've done. The teams I played on were very good and had a wonderful four years (a starter from 1982-86, with an appearance in the NCAA final as a senior), but the cumulative success over the years, there's a glow hanging over it and a perception that you were better than you really were. I don't dissuade anyone that notion. But there's also that thought, "Jeez, another Duke guy on television." I don't have a problem with that. After all these years, I try to rely upon whatever credibility I built up. Everyone once in a while people will come up and say, "I hate Duke, but I don't hate you." And it's supposed to be a compliment.
The downside to this book is I can't whine or complain much. If I have the sniffles feeling sorry for myself, my wife is like, "OK, Mr. Toughness." I've got no shot now. I'll have to toughen up even more.