# 39

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong....because sometime in your life you will have been all of these."

This past week my daughter, Kaitlin, turned sixteen. A recent Walt Disney movie, The Princess Diaries, is about a young lady who would be Princess. Her father, who had ignored her most of her young life, died prior to her sixteenth birthday. However, he gives her a diary and he gives her sound advice that his father had passed on to him upon his 16th birthday--a royal family tradition. The advice given is:

"Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all. From now on, you'll be traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to make the journey."

I just returned from Atlanta, having attended the National Association of Basketball Coaches Convention. The convention is a mega-networking opportunity for coaches. It is a chance to see old friends and make new ones. And, it is a chance to celebrate basketball. A name that popped up while in Atlanta was Jimmy "V". Jim Valvano led North Carolina State to an improbable upset win (54-52) over the University of Houston to win the 1983 NCAA Championship. North Carolina State rewarded Jimmy "V" with a lifetime contract. A 1989 NCAA investigation into the basketball program (which cleared Valvano of any wrong doing) cost Valvano his job. In typical Jimmy "V" fashion, Valvano was quoted saying, "They gave me a life-time contract and then declared me dead."

The following is an excerpt from a story written by Dick Vitale--The Unforgettable Jim Valvano (Chicken Soup for the Sports Fan's Soul).

The true story of Jimmy "V" is that of courage. After leaving NC State, Valvano was hired as a TV commentator for ESPN. In June 1992, he received a call from his doctor. "Coach, I'm 90 percent sure this is cancer." Tests confirmed bone cancer. He attacked the disease the only way he knew how--with all his energy. While receiving treatment, he read every cancer book he could find. He spent a career telling players never to give up. Now he had to say it to himself everyday.

He made his battle public, too, and wanted to keep working despite his illness. In our hotel room the night before an ESPN preseason planning meeting that October, he was taking painkillers to relieve what he described as a toothache running through his entire body. But the next day, he bore his pain so gracefully that it was easy for those around him to forget it. I once complained to him about my hectic schedule the next day.

"Do you want to come with me tomorrow? You drive me to chemotherapy, watch me throw up and see people faced with real adversity." That hit me like five thousand pounds. Finally he said something I'll never forget: "You're missing the important stuff, Dickie. You're moving too fast. You gotta slow it down, baby."

At the American Sports Awards in March 1993, I introduced Jimmy as the winner of the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage. The cancer had advanced, and Jim thought he might not make the ceremony. But he came--in a wheelchair.

I was broken up as Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, one of Jimmy's closest friends, and I helped him up for his acceptance speech. "That's the lowest I've seen Dick Vitale since the Detroit Pistons' owner told him he should go into broadcasting” said Valvano. The place went nuts. Twenty-four hours earlier he could hardly talk and now he was cracking jokes.

When the laughter subsided, Jimmy drew from some final reserve of energy, deep in his heart, as if his life wouldn't be complete without sending out his message one last time.

"To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think--spend some time in thought. Number three; let your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think and cry, that's a heck of a day."

He paused as he announced that with ESPN's support a Jimmy V. Foundation for cancer research was being founded. Its motto is: "Don't give up. Don't ever give up."

Jimmy "V" looked out to his audience and gave them one last thing to hold on to: "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."

Jimmy "V" died April 28th, less than two months after the speech.

Since that time the Jimmy "V" foundation has raised millions of dollars towards cancer research. And, the message has inspired thousands of cancer victims who heard Jimmy "V" message: "Don't give up. Don't ever give up."

Happy Easter-----Happy Passover

Contact Tom at: tomhughes@motivationNmore.com

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