Don't Give Up. Don't Ever Give Up

Last night kicked off ESPN's Jimmy V week. For those of you not familiar, Jim Valvano was a college basketball coach from 1969-1990, mostly known for his time at North Carolina State at the end of his career. His time at North Carolina included winning the 1983 National Championship in one of the best finishes (and biggest upsets, over Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon's University of Houston team) in NCAA tournament history, followed by Jimmy V running around the court with his arms out just looking for someone to hug and celebrate with. He then went on to broadcast for ESPN and ABC after his coaching career was over, quickly becoming a fan favorite thanks to his exuberant personality and style.

In 1992, he was diagnosed with bone cancer that was fairly far along. That following spring, he gave a speech at the inaugural ESPY awards on ESPN. It's one of the best speeches I've ever heard. ESPN replays this speech once a year at the start of their Jimmy V week. I'm writing about it today because the speech was on again last night. If I had known ahead of time, I would have written about it earlier so everyone could have tuned in to see it. He gave the whole speech with no notes and just said whatever came to mind. At one point during the speech, one of the producers tried to tell him he had thirty seconds remaining in his time. To this, Jimmy V responded, "They got that screen up there flashing 30 seconds, like I care about that screen. I got tumors all over my body and I'm worried about some guy in the back going 30 seconds?" to which he got a loud round of applause from the live audience.

In his speech, he announced the founding of The V Foundation. The V Foundation raises money to support cancer research. Since 1993, the V Foundation has raised over $80 million. The one thing that I really like about the V Foundation is that 100% of every dollar raised by the V Foundation goes directly to fund cancer research, as everyone that works for the V Foundation works as a volunteer.

I'll leave you with something that always sticks with me from the speech. It's just something to think of when you think you're having a rough day. Many of us lead full, busy lives, but here's something to think about from Jimmy V:

"To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."

I know money is tough for lots of people right now. If you're looking for a charity, and especially if your life has personally been touched by someone who has battled cancer, please check out the V Foundation: http://www.jimmyv.org

ESPN will continue it's Jimmy V week for the rest of this week and the early portion of next week as they continue raise money for cancer research.