Originally posted 07/12/07
We all have those moments where unexpectedly we happen upon something that we remember seemingly forever. Sometimes it is just a wonderful moment, checking out the score before going to bed and happening upon a pitcher bidding for a no hitter late in a game. Driving down the street and seeing a couple of kids helping an elderly woman who has dropped her groceries. Staying in a hotel while on vacation and walking by a conference room silent except for a stranger at the podium praising an honoree you will never meet. These moments can be exciting or uplifting or stirring.
Sometimes we are fortunate that the happenstance is very a powerful and moving experience that we can reach back and touch for many years. This happened to me in March 1993 when I happened to flip on the tube to see what was on. At the time I was single, living alone in an apartment in Belmont Shore with no prospects of marriage or kids on the horizon. Per my normal surfing pattern I went right to ESPN to see if there was a game or Sportcenter on and they were showing their inaugural “Espy Awards”, an event/award show they had created to honor the best in sports. Just as I turned it on announcer and former coach Dick Vitale was approaching the podium to introduce the winner of the first “Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award” (that inaugural show occurred about a month after the great Arthur Ashe passed away from AID). The honoree was Jim Valvano, the infamous Jimmy V, at the time an announcer and more widely known as the coach of the North Carolina State basketball team that had upset the hugely favored University of Houston team in the NCAA tournament and then ran wildly around the court looking for someone to hug. Jimmy V also had cancer, incurable, inoperable and fatal—something every college basketball fan knew as he was not shy about his condition and spoke of it and opportunities for people to help not him but those who would follow with cancer.
I stood there watching Jimmy V give the most remarkable and uplifting speech I have ever witnessed (link below to text and video versions). In his speech he said something I have never forgotten, every day we should do three things: laugh, think and “have your emotions moved to tears.” “You laugh, you think, you cry, that’s a full day,” he said. Watching him talk I did all three within a few minutes. As it concluded and I wiped tears off my cheeks I thought, “if I had children I would try to make sure this is part of their lives and how they grow up and live—laugh, think and be moved to tears.” I do not think I have quite lived up to that yet, and it is only a few times a year I think about Jimmy’s advice—usually this time of year when the Espy Awards are being promoted by ESPN. He is right however, on days when I laugh without care with friends or family or even strangers, and I have the opportunity to really think about an issue or the future, and someone or event stirs my emotions to tears—especially those of pride, joy or awe—I go to bed feeling fulfilled.
He showed the world courage, determination and hope. He concluded his speech by saying, “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.” He was right on this point as well and it is something we can all live by and know we have made a difference.
Jimmy Valvano created the Jimmy V Foundation which is the beneficiary of the Espy Award ticket sales, as well as events put on around the event. Jimmy passed away less than two months after his speech, his final words to the world are captured on tape and include the motto for his Foundation, “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.”
We have a lot of issues and problems and tragedy in our lives that we debate, argue about and at times being divisive. We also have a lot of moments in our lives that inspire, encourage and move us. Take a moment and click on the link below and see if at the end you do not find yourself having one of Jimmy V’s “full days.”
Click here for the Jimmy V Foundation site and video and printed versions of his speech. I encourage you to watch the video.
Don’t give up.