The question, because of the speaker, ought to resonate for anyone who follows sport.
"What is tough?" John Kirwan asks. "Tough is not sliding across the hockey rink and bashing someone, and then ripping off your helmet and punching. That's not tough. We grow up in society as men who think toughness is: 'Don't mess with me, I'm tough.' That's not tough. Anyone can do that. Courage is actually sharing your feelings, understanding our vulnerabilities, and making sure that you get people around that care. That's courage. That's reaching out."
Touchy-feely words, the kind that would get mocked in many a locker room, certainly mocked from the bully pulpit on Saturday night. But no one would call Kirwan a softy to his face, no one would deny the ferocity of rugby, a contact sport played without pads, without helmets, a hard game played by hard men (and women), of whom Kirwan was one of the greatest of all time.
He is indeed plenty tough, a sports icon in his homeland of New Zealand, and also a man beset by mental illness, felled by depression, who then had the true courage to open up and speak publicly about it.
"When I talk about mental health and depression, it's about fear and it's about raw fear," he says. "You fear what's going on in your head, and it's so scary that you're not prepared to tell anyone."
Kirwan became the face of a public awareness campaign back home, shocking those who had no idea of the ordeal he had come through, and eventually wrote a book - All Blacks Don't Cry - shattering a great taboo.
Anyone needing a reminder of Kirwan's on-field genius can find it just a few clicks away, video footage of the try he scored playing for the New Zealand All Blacks against Italy in the 1987 World Cup. It is as dazzling as anything you will see in the National Football League this season. Kirwan possessed the same remarkable combination of speed and power and size and elusiveness that is the skill set of the greatest running backs (though they play only half the game at most, and get to rest when the whistle blows).
Competing for his country, the greatest rugby-playing nation on earth, as a teenager, put Kirwan in rare air indeed.
"Imagine a 19-year-old who dreamed of being an All Black making the team," Kirwan said during a brief stop in Toronto last week. "I walked into this room and felt bulletproof. Then one of the senior members asked:
'Who are you?'
'I'm John Kirwan.'
"Who picked you? We didn't.'
"I was deflated. He said, 'If we lose on Sunday it's your fault.' Then they took me under their wing and explained to me that if we do lose on Sunday it would be my fault because you've got to learn to look in the mirror first. Don't blame anything on us before you blame yourself. And the jersey's not yours, the jersey is on loan. You'll hold it for one test or you'll hold it for 50 tests, but it's not yours."
Kirwan held it for 96 matches - including 63 tests - and scored a total of 67 tries for his country, which remains the national record.
But even as he was enjoying that enormous success, even as he became a sporting icon in a country where just about every one of its four million inhabitants obsesses over the game, privately he began to crumble.
"In the All Blacks environment, there's the perception that you need to be tougher," Kirwan says. "But elite sports people are just like anyone else. We suffer form stress and pressure. We're insecure. It doesn't make any difference that we have an ability to play a sport. I thought I was invincible. You can't stop me. I'm an All Black at 19. It doesn't get much better than this. And then you get up in the morning and the guy looking back at you in the mirror is not you. It breaks everything down…
"My fear was that if you show someone your weaknesses, they'll throw them back in your face. I didn't tell anyone for two years. It wasn't until I couldn't get out of bed any more and I was crying all day. One of my biggest fears - and I had many - I thought I was going to be a murderer. I thought I was going to be Jack Nicholson in The Shining. You can laugh about it now, but these fears manifest themselves. You grab these thoughts and you just run with them."
Through therapy and medication, Kirwan eventually held his depression at bay, and then found the courage to speak about it publicly. He continued playing, including enjoying the first years of rugby professionalism with a club team in Japan. A job coaching the Italian national side followed, and now he will lead the Japanese team into next year's World Cup in New Zealand. (Kirwan actually lives in Treviso with his Italian-born wife, and commutes to Japan every couple of weeks.)
When he returns home to New Zealand, it isn't unusual for people who now know his story to walk up to him on the street and give the great, big tough guy a hug.
"It's been an incredible journey for me," Kirwan says.