Jim Valvano
This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2007) |
Biographical details | |
---|---|
Born | Corona, New York | March 10, 1946
Died | April 28, 1993 Durham, North Carolina, USA | (aged 47)
Playing career | |
Position(s) | Point guard |
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 Year Arthur Ashe Award for Courage Cable ACE Award for Commentator/Analyst | |
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.
Biography
Personal
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 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.
College playing career
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.
Coaching career
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 346–210. 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. 'Coach V' was voted ACC Coach of the Year in 1989. 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.
Head coaching record
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 | ||||||||
National champion
Postseason invitational champion
|
Controversy
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 coaching
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.
ESPY speech
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.[7] 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.[8]
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.
Yankees
New York native Valvano had always wanted to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. He had been given that honor for the 1993 season opener to be held on April 12,[1] but he was too ill to do so. Coaching rival and friend Dean Smith substituted for Valvano.
Death
Jim Valvano died less than two months after his famous ESPY speech and after a year-long battle with cancer. Valvano died April 28, 1993 at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.[2] He is buried 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." Lorenzo Charles, the player who scored the winning basket in the 1983 NCAA championship game, died in a bus crash on June 27, 2011 and was buried in proximity to Jim Valvano in Oakwood Cemetery.
Legacy
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. In 2012, he was named to the first class of the NC State Athletics Hall of Fame.[9]
References
- ^ Full Video & Transcript of ESPY speech
- ^ a b Thomas, Robert McG., Jr. "Jim Valvano, Colorful College Basketball Coach, Is Dead at 47", The New York Times, April 29, 1993. Accessed October 11, 2009.
- ^ Historical State: History in Red and White. "Jim Valvano's debut (11/29/1980)". Retrieved 4 January 2012.
- ^ Historical State: History in Red and White. "Men's Basketball wins NCAA championship (4/1983)". Retrieved 4 January 2012.
- ^ State's Washburn wasn't recruited on basis of academic qualifications
- ^ Jim Valvano is a bad choice for the broadcast booth
- ^ "Jimmy's 1993 ESPY Speech". YouTube. 2008-09-28. Retrieved 2012-10-01.
- ^ Valvano, Jim (4). "ESPY Awards Speech". The V Foundation. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
{{cite web}}
: Check date values in:|date=
and|year=
/|date=
mismatch (help); Unknown parameter|month=
ignored (help) - ^ WRAL: Yow, Valvano among first 10 in NC State Hall of Fame
- Cairns, Bob (2005). V & Me: Everybody's Favorite Jim Valvano Story. Alexander, NC: Alexander Books. ISBN 978-1-57090-229-1.
- Cole, Marcus (Director); Greenman, Adam (Writer) (1996). Never Give Up: The Jimmy V Story (Motion picture (made for television)). Sherman Oaks, CA: Daniel H. Blatt Productions.
- ESPN (1993). ESPY Awards (Television). Bristol, CT: ESPN Original Entertainment.
- Towle, Mike (2001). I Remember Jim Valvano: Personal Reflections and Anecdotes About College Basketball's Most Exuberant Final Four Coach, As Told by the People and Players Who Knew Him. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House Publishing. ISBN 978-1-58182-219-9.
- Valvano, Bob (2001). The Gifts of Jimmy V: A Coach's Legacy. Chicago, IL: Triumph Books. ISBN 978-1-892049-30-8.
- Valvano, Jim (1992). Valvano: They Gave Me a Lifetime Contract, and Then They Declared Me Dead. New York, NY: Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-671-73254-7.
{{cite book}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - Wojnarowski, Adrian (2008). Jimmy V: The Life and Death of Jim Valvano. New York, NY: Gotham Books. ISBN 978-1-59240-354-7.
External links
- V Foundation for Cancer Research
- ESPY Award Speech by Jim Valvano - Video & Full Transcript
- ESPY Award Address in Text, Audio, Video
- Jim Valvano Timeline
- Jim Valvano at Findagrave.com
- National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame
Template:Persondata Yes, Indeed I would.
- 1946 births
- 1993 deaths
- American basketball coaches
- American people of Italian descent
- Basketball players from New York
- Bucknell Bison men's basketball coaches
- Burials in Historic Oakwood Cemetery
- College basketball announcers in the United States
- College football announcers
- College men's basketball head coaches in the United States
- Connecticut Huskies men's basketball coaches
- Iona Gaels men's basketball coaches
- Johns Hopkins Blue Jays men's basketball coaches
- NC State Wolfpack athletic directors
- NC State Wolfpack men's basketball coaches
- People from Corona, Queens
- Point guards
- Rutgers Scarlet Knights men's basketball players