Matt Way is the creator and author of Third and Blog, a sports website dedicated to everything sports.

************

That is the famous quote given by Jim Valvano during his speech at the 1993 ESPYs. Valvano was accepting the very first Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

Who is Jim Valvano, you may ask? You may recognize him from his celebration after the 1983 NCAA Championship Game where he ran around the court looking for someone to hug after Lorenzo Charles’s last second putback:

Today, Jim Valvano is more famous for his 1993 ESPYs speech and the result of that speech: the Jimmy V Foundation. At the time of the speech, Valvano was dying from bone cancer (he would die two months later). He knew that his condition could not be cured, but he set up the Jimmy V Foundation with the help of ESPN to support research to find a cure for cancer.

ESPN gets a lot of criticism, but this is one thing that they do a phenomenal job of.

Since that speech, the Jimmy V Foundation has raised over $90 million, 100% of which goes to fund cancer research. A lot of the money donated to charities goes to things other than the cause, so the Jimmy V Foundation and its function is truly special. To donate (which I encourage everyone to do), please go to their website.

I also encourage people to check out the speech (below), especially if you haven’t seen it before.

Highlights include a hilarious Green Bay Packers story, calling out the screen telling him he had 30 seconds left, Valvano’s advice on life of laughing, thinking, and crying every day (“But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day.”), and his final words that “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. “

They have carried on forever, and they’re benefiting millions of people around the world today. Thanks, Jimmy V.

Don’t give up… don’t ever give up.

*************************************************************************************

Matt Way is a law student at Marquette University after graduating from the University of Michigan.  You can read more of his commentary on his blog: Third and Blog

No related posts.