Jimmy Valvano’s Famous Speech

By Steven Henrici

One of my favorite speeches is that by the late Jimmy Valvano in the summer of 1993 during the Espy Awards. Valvano came to the annual sports awards on August 3, 1993 to receive the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award. He was diagnosed with bone cancer just one year before and had been told he did not not have long to live. This did not stop him from making what is known as one of the most courageous speeches ever.

Jimmy Valvano announced the founding of The V Foundation for Cancer Research, with the motto of “Don’t Ever Give Up.”  He was entertaining and emotional, but more importantly, touched everyone that was there. “Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities,” he said. “It cannot touch my mind, It cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.” Jimmy Valvano died two months later. He was only 47 years old.

Everything that Valvano said on that summer day in 1993 became legendary. Today the Division 1 College Basketball National Champion coach is honored for one week every year during the beginning of the college basketball season. A week is put forward to not only honor Jimmy Valvano and how great a person he was, but to provide money to the cancer fund that he started.  In 2013, ESPN’s 30 for 30 Films created a film about North Carolina State’s Championship run, called Survive and Advance. Along with the 1983 season, it also covers the final months of his life and his fight against cancer.