Jim Valvano

1946–1993 · college basketball coach, broadcaster, founder of the V Foundation

Jim Valvano coached North Carolina State to the 1983 NCAA championship as heavy underdogs, in a final settled when Lorenzo Charles caught a team-mate’s desperate last-second shot short and dunked it as time expired. He later worked as a broadcaster. Diagnosed with metastatic cancer, he used his 4 March 1993 ESPY acceptance speech to announce the V Foundation for Cancer Research and gave it the motto Don’t Give Up … Don’t Ever Give Up. He died 55 days later, on 28 April 1993, aged 47.

Traced to source

2 quotes we’ve traced to Jim Valvano

“Don't give up. Don't ever give up.”

Verified

“To me, there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think. And number three, you should have your emotions moved to tears”

Disputed

Not actually Jim Valvano

Often misattributed to Jim Valvano

Famous lines widely pinned on Jim Valvano that we’ve traced to someone else.

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit”

actually Albert Schweitzer

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