| Jim Valvano | |
|---|---|
| Biographical details | |
| Born | March 10, 1946 |
| Place of birth | Corona, New York, USA |
| Died | April 28, 1993 (aged 47) |
| Playing career | |
| 1964–1967 | Rutgers |
| Position(s) | Point guard |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1968–1969 1970–1972 1972–1975 1975–1980 1980–1990 |
Johns Hopkins Connecticut (asst.) Bucknell Iona NC State |
| Administrative career (AD unless noted) | |
| 1986–1989 | NC State |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 346–210 |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| NCAA Division I Tournament Champion: 1983 ACC Tournament Champion: 1983, 1987 |
|
| Awards | |
| 1989 ACC Coach of The 1998 Year Arthur Ashe Award for Courage Cable ACE Award for Commentator/Analyst |
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James Thomas Anthony "Jim" Valvano (March 10, 1946 – April 28, 1993), nicknamed Jimmy V, was an American college basketball coach.
While the head basketball coach at North Carolina State University, he won the 1983 NCAA Basketball Tournament against long odds. Valvano is not only remembered for running up and down the court after winning the 1983 NCAA championship, seemingly in disbelief and looking for someone to hug, but also for his inspirational 1993 ESPY Awards speech,[1] given just eight weeks before he died of cancer.
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Valvano was the middle child of Rocco and Angelina Valvano, and was born in Corona, Queens, New York.[2] Valvano attended Seaford High School in Seaford, New York. He was married for years to his high school sweetheart, Pamela Levine. They had three daughters: Nicole, Jamie, and Lee Ann.
Vince Lombardi was Valvano's role model. Valvano told an ESPY audience, on March 3, 1993, that he took some of Lombardi's inspirational speeches out of his book Commitment to Excellence and used them with his team. Valvano discussed how he planned to use Lombardi's speech to the Green Bay Packers in front of his Rutgers freshman basketball team prior to his first game as a coach.
Valvano was a point guard at Rutgers University in 1967, where he partnered with first-team All-American Bob Lloyd in the backcourt. Under the leadership of Valvano and Lloyd, Rutgers finished third in the 1967 NIT, which was the last basketball tournament held at the old Madison Square Garden. Jim was named Senior Athlete of the Year at Rutgers in 1967. He graduated with a degree in English in 1967.
Valvano's 19-year career as a head basketball coach included stops at Johns Hopkins, Bucknell, Iona, and NC State. Valvano made his debut at NC State on November 29, 1980, when the Wolfpack defeated UNC-Wilmington 83-59.[3] His career record was 346–212. During his 10 year NC State career, Valvano's teams were the ACC Tournament Champions in 1983 and 1987 and the ACC regular season champions in 1985 and 1989. The Wolfpack won the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship in 1983,[4] in addition to advancing to the NCAA Elite 8 in 1985 and 1986. He was twice voted ACC coach of the year. Valvano became NC State's athletic director in 1986.
Valvano's famous reaction of running around on the court looking for somebody to hug in the moments after the Wolfpack victory came after the game-winning shot in the 1983 NCAA finals. Dereck Whittenburg heaved a last-second desperation shot that was caught short of the rim and dunked by Lorenzo Charles as time expired. By a score of 54–52, NC State beat a top seeded University of Houston team that was on a 26-game winning streak and was led by future Basketball Hall of Famers Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon. Previously, NC State won the college basketball championship in 1974 when it ended UCLA's streak of seven consecutive national titles.
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (Middle Atlantic Conference) (1969–1970) | |||||||||
| 1969–1970 | Johns Hopkins | 10–9 | |||||||
| Johns Hopkins: | 10–9 | ||||||||
| Bucknell Bison (Middle Atlantic Conference) (1972–1975) | |||||||||
| 1972–1973 | Bucknell | 11–14 | 6–4 | T-2nd | |||||
| 1973–1974 | Bucknell | 8–16 | 2–8 | T-5th | |||||
| 1974–1975 | Bucknell | 14–12 | 4–4 | T-3rd | |||||
| Bucknell: | 33–42 | 12–16 | |||||||
| Iona Gaels (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) (1975–1980) | |||||||||
| 1975–1976 | Iona | 11–15 | |||||||
| 1976–1977 | Iona | 15–10 | |||||||
| 1977–1978 | Iona | 17–10 | |||||||
| 1978–1979 | Iona | 23–6 | NCAA 1st Round | ||||||
| 1979–1980 | Iona | 28–4 | NCAA 2nd Round | ||||||
| Iona: | 94–45 | ||||||||
| NC State Wolfpack (Atlantic Coast Conference) (1980–1990) | |||||||||
| 1980–1981 | NC State | 14–13 | 4–10 | 7th | None | ||||
| 1981–1982 | NC State | 22–10 | 7–7 | 4th | NCAA 1st Round | ||||
| 1982–1983 | NC State | 26–10 | 8–6 | T–3rd | NCAA Champions | ||||
| 1983–1984 | NC State | 19–14 | 4–10 | 7th | NIT 1st Round | ||||
| 1984–1985 | NC State | 23–10 | 9–5 | T–1st | NCAA Elite Eight | ||||
| 1985–1986 | NC State | 21–13 | 7–7 | T–4th | NCAA Elite Eight | ||||
| 1986–1987 | NC State | 20–15 | 6–8 | 6th | NCAA 1st Round | ||||
| 1987–1988 | NC State | 24–8 | 10–4 | 2nd | NCAA 1st Round | ||||
| 1988–1989 | NC State | 22–9 | 10–4 | 1st | NCAA Sweet 16 | ||||
| 1989–1990 | NC State | 18–12 | 6–8 | T–5th | None | ||||
| NC State: | 209–114 | 71–69 | |||||||
| Total: | 346–210 | ||||||||
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National champion Conference regular season champion Conference tournament champion |
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In 1990, accusations of rules violations surfaced in the book Personal Fouls by Peter Golenbock. These accusations centered mostly around high school All-American Chris Washburn, who only managed a 470 out of 1600 on his SAT (with 400 being the starting score).[5] A 1989 NCAA investigation cleared Valvano, but found that players sold shoes and game tickets. As a result, NC State placed its basketball program on probation for two years (the maximum) and was banned from participating in the 1990 NCAA tournament. The state-appointed Poole Commission issued a 32-page report that concluded that there were no major violations of NCAA regulations, and that Valvano and his staff's inadequate oversight of players' academic progress violated "the spirit, not the letter of the law." After this report, Valvano was forced to resign as the school's athletic director in October 1989. He remained as basketball coach through the 1989–1990 season. Under subsequent pressure from the school's faculty and new Chancellor, Valvano negotiated a settlement with NC State and resigned as basketball coach on April 7, 1990. Six separate entities investigated Valvano and the NC State basketball program including the NC State Faculty Senate, the North Carolina Attorney General, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, the NC State Board of Trustees, and the NCAA. None of them found any recruiting or financial improprieties. However, a school investigation did reveal that Valvano's student athletes did not perform well in the classroom, as only 11 of the players that he coached prior to 1988 had maintained an average of C or better.[6] This was perhaps due to his persistence in recruiting students deemed to be "academic exceptions."
Valvano's version of these events can be found in his 1991 autobiography, Valvano: They Gave Me a Lifetime Contract, and Then They Declared Me Dead.
After his coaching career, Valvano was a broadcaster for ESPN and ABC Sports, including a stint as a sideline reporter for the inaugural season of the World League of American Football. In 1992, Valvano won a Cable ACE Award for Commentator/Analyst for NCAA basketball broadcasts. From time to time he was paired with basketball analyst Dick Vitale, dubbed the "Killer Vees", with similar voices and exuberant styles. The two even made a cameo appearance, playing the role of professional movers (V&V Movers), on an episode of The Cosby Show.
Valvano created JTV enterprises to guide many of his entrepreneurial endeavors. He gave hundreds of motivational speeches across the country and was a featured guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman.
One of Valvano's most memorable motivational speeches was delivered February 21, 1993 at Reynolds Coliseum on NCSU's basketball court during the ten year commemoration of the University's 1983 NCAA championship. It was during this speech that Valvano stressed the importance of hope, love, and persistence and included his famous "Don't give up, don't ever give up" quotation.
Valvano was diagnosed with bone cancer in June 1992. In July, he found out that it had metastasized.
On March 3, 1993, shortly before his death, he spoke at the first ESPY Awards, presented by ESPN. While accepting the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award, he announced the creation of The V Foundation for Cancer Research, an organization dedicated to finding a cure for cancer. He announced that the Foundation's motto would be "Don't Give Up . . . Don't Ever Give Up." During his speech the teleprompter stated that he had 30 seconds left, to which Valvano 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." His speech included this statement:
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.[7]
Valvano's ESPY acceptance speech became legendary, and he closed by saying, "Cancer can take away all of 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. I thank you and God bless you all."
He received a standing ovation from the ESPY crowd.
Jim Valvano died less than two months after his famous ESPY speech and after a year-long battle with cancer. He is interred in the Cedar Hill Section of Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina. His tombstone reads: "Take time every day to laugh, to think, to cry."
A 1996 TV movie titled Never Give Up: The Jimmy V Story, starred Anthony LaPaglia as Valvano. In 1993, Valvano was inducted into the Rutgers Basketball Hall of Fame. In 1999, Valvano was inducted into both the Hall of Distinguished Alumni at Rutgers University and the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2004, Valvano was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.
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