A Very Good Reason To Be A Tommy Z Fan

Sid · Apr 19, 2007

Article published Apr 18, 2007

Weis awed by Zibby's generosity

ERIC HANSEN
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- As Charlie Weis watched his first few snippets of tape as Notre Dame's head football coach more than two years ago, Tom Zbikowski emerged as the poster boy for what Weis was looking for in a football player.

Little did Weis know that the player who personified nasty so well would also turn out to be a man who stood for something so divergent, so, well, un-nasty off the field.

Giving back.In a private moment recently, the Notre Dame fifth-year senior safety presented Weis with a check for $20,000 -- a gift to Weis' Hannah & Friends charity. Hannah & Friends, inspired by the Charlie and Maura Weis' 12-year-old special-needs daughter (Hannah), is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to providing a better quality of life for children and adults with special needs.

The money was raised through Zbikowski's charity boxing event March 6 at the Century Center. All told, the Arlington Heights, Ill., product was able to donate nearly $50,000 to various charities from the event, organized and announced barely a week before it took place.

"I was floored," Weis said Tuesday, shortly after serving as the keynote speaker at the 18th-annual Human Rights Awareness Day luncheon. The event, sponsored by the South Bend Human Rights Commission, was held at Century Center."Here's a kid who didn't have to stick around and come back for a fifth year, that decides to come back," Weis said of Zbikowski. "And instead of going and taking a fight in New York City or Las Vegas and making a chunk of change for himself, he says to me that he wants to have any fighting out of the way before we started spring practice, because he wants to be in the best shape of his life going into the 2007 season. And he fights for charity.

"When we talk about college athletes off the field these days, a lot of times we're talking about kids doing bad things. You don't hear about the good things kids do. Well, here's a kid whose family -- sister, brother, mom and dad -- could have taken their cut, and they didn't take a penny, nor did Tommy. And to do this in a week? My wife and I do a lot of charity work, but it's a long process, usually a year in the making. What he did, what this community did, is just unbelievable."

Zbikowski also gave money to the following charities: $15,000 to Hospice of Health First in Melbourne, Fla.; $5,000 to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation; $5,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Indiana; $2,000 to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation; $1,000 to PanCAN (a pancreatic cancer research and education foundation); and $1,000 to the South Bend Center for the Homeless.Zbikowski made his pro boxing debut last summer in Madison Square Garden with a first-round knockout of Robert Bell. What the public didn't know was that he gave $2,000 out of that payday purse to Hannah & Friends that very day.

"A lot of times people only see this rough guy with a gruff look," Weis said of Zbikowski. "What they don't always know, don't always see is how much this kid cares. Well now they know."
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George Krebs · Apr 19, 2007

Sid,

Do you hear that sound?

That's me.... eating a sh*tburger.

gipper · Apr 19, 2007

Nice article Sid. Thanks for the post.

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A Very Good Reason To Be A Tommy Z Fan

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