An Inspiration to All

Author’s Note: This is a creative piece on a person that I idolize, Jim Valvano.  In the piece I will be talking about his effect on people throughout his coaching career but his fight with cancer too.  Look for a variety of sentence beginnings in this piece.

You are on top of word, and no one can stop you.  Your team just won the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and you as a coach are running around the court excited, not knowing what to do.  The players hug you, and you smile with great joy. Everything that you have dreamed about as a kid is suddenly coming true.  Life as you know it can’t get better, but within ten years your life would come crumbling down right in front of you with just three simple words: “you have cancer”.  That is the story of Jim Valvano, the man who coached the North Carolina State Wolfpack to an NCAA Tournament title in 1983, and then nine years later was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Jim Valvano is famous for influencing his players on and off the court, along with basketball fans during the days when he was coaching at NC State, but his fight with cancer was more famous than anything else.

North Carolina State proved to the world that anyone can win with their historic title run in 1983 under Coach Jim Valvano. They overcame so many odds in order to win the National Title.  During their run they had to win very challenging games against some of the top teams in division one such as North Carolina, UNLV, Utah, Houston and had to beat Virginia twice in order to win the title.  And if they lost any of those games they would go home.  NC State was put in a very tough situation after the regular season concluded due to the fact they had to win the ACC Tournament in order to get an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. “Survive and advance” that is what Jim Valvano told his players before the first game in the ACC Tournament.  North Carolina State beat Wake Forest, North Carolina and Virginia to win the ACC Tournament and get into the NCAA Tournament.   NC State received a six seed and played Pepperdine in their first game.  NC State struggled, but they won.  The Wolfpack later beat UNLV and Utah to move onto the regional final against Virginia, their ACC rival.   The game was very close with Virginia missing key free-throws allowing NC State to win again.  They cruised past Georgia in national semi-final and had to face the top team in the country, Houston in the final. In the final, North Carolina State hung around the entire game, and with only a few seconds left, Derek Wittenberg launched a long three pointer that came up short. Fortunately, Lorenzo Charles was there to grab the ball and dunk it as time expired.  Coach Valvano ran onto the court looking for someone to hug, but there was no one there.  North Carolina State just won the National Title, they beat all the odds and pulled off one of the greatest upsets in all of college sports (NC State University Official Athletic Page ).

After winning the national title In 1983 North Carolina State would struggle the next year: they  would not even make the NCAA Tournament, instead they made the NIT Tournament.  They lost in the first round to Florida State.  After an year of disappointment NC State looked alot like the 1983 team by making appearances in the elite eight, though in both years they lost in that round. Valvano never got back to the elite eight after 1986. The closest he got was in 1989 when his team reached the sweet sixteen.

Nothing was really the same compared to the famous 1983 team.  But in 1990, allegations started to come out about North Carolina State.  A reporter named Peter Golenbock wrote a book called Personal Fouls which discussed the lack of institutional control and improper practices by North Carolina State University.   There were allegations of players using drugs, selling memorabilia and even changing grades.  The NCAA investigated it and didn’t find much, though after it all, perspectives on Jim Valvano totally changed. A dark cloud was left of Jim Valvano once the investigations concluded, he thought that it would be best to leave NC State, and that is what happened. After ten years of great success Jim Valvano resigned.  Jim Valvano was later hired to work at ESPN as a basketball announcer, yet his job there would only last for two years because of his diagnoses of terminal cancer in 1992 (North Carolina State T NCAA Tournament Results ), (NC State Wolfpack men's basketball), (Jim Valvano Time Line, The V Foundation).

Jim Valvano’s fight with cancer was long and hard; there would have been times when some people would have just given up, but not Jim Valvano: he believed he could beat cancer and he knew he could do it.  There was one night, one night that everything would change, everything that has happened in the past years with the Personal Fouls book coming out and his fight with cancer.  Our opinions of Jim Valvano would change forever.  March 4th, 1993, Jim Valvano was nominated for the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage during his fight with cancer.  That night Jim Valvano shared some of his best wisdom; this speech would be what he is remembered for.  Jim Valvano mentioned that he was going to talk for longer than anyone else that night,  he began his talk by stating: “time is precious and I don’t know how much of it I have left”  “Now I’m fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how’s your day, and nothing is changed for me.” Sonny Vaccaro, a friend of Jim Valvano said, “God gave him word that night  to give to us.” “To me, there are three things we all should do every day,“ said Jim Valvano. “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. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears; it 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.”  He later talked about his relationship with Mike Krzyewski, how he had been there for the past six months helping him during his fight with cancer.  “He’s ten times better a person than a coach, and we all know he is a great coach. I always have to think about what’s important in life to me are these three things. Where you started, where you are and where you’re going to be.”  Valvano went on to say that he started at Rutgers University as a coach and that he is currently on the ESPY stage, though he never did mention where his is going to be, but he did say “that if you have a dream or goal, you have to be willing to work for it.”  Jim Valvano would later say that with the help of ESPN, he was creating the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.  “The motto is don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” Jim Valvano closed with this statement: “Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever” (Jim Valvano Quotes ) (Hock).

We know that Jim Valvano was a great coach and a spectacular person.  He has moved many people, including myself, with his famous ESPY Speech in 1993.  Though Jim Valvano is no longer with us, the V Foundation holds many events to raise money for cancer research.  Youth basketball tournaments are held for the V Foundation and one of the first weeks in the college basketball season is called Jimmy V Week.  The V Foundation raised over eighteen million dollars alone in 2012  for cancer research.  Jim Valvano wanted to try everything in order to beat cancer, and to me that is amazing; he always had the will to fight.  Researching this topic has given me a chance to discover the real person that Jim Valvano was.  The one thing that I will take away from all of my research is a simple seven word phrase: “don’t give up, don’t ever give up”  (Home The V Foundation ) (2012 Annual Report ).

Works Cited

ESPN'S 30 for 30 Survive and Advance. Dir. Jonathan Hock. 2013. TV.

"Home The V Foundation ." 2013. jimmyv.org. Document . 8 April 2013.

Jim Valvano Quotes . 2011-2013. Document . 7 April 2013.

Jim Valvano Time Line The V Foundation. 2013. 7 April 2013.

NC State University Official Athletic Page . 2013. Document . 7 April 2013.

NC State Wolfpack men's basketball. 5 April 2013. Document. 7 April 2013.

North Carolina State T NCAA Tournament Results . 2002-2011. Docuemnt. 7 April 2013.