Don't Ever Give Up!

My UNC friend, Al, sent me this quote by Jimmy Valvano recently, "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."

It reminded me of what a remarkable man he was and how blessed we were to have him at NC State.  I was lucky enough to attend his last basketball game in Reynolds Coliseum.  We all wore black bands around our arms to signify our distress.  He was forced into leaving due to allegations of NCAA misconduct of which he was later cleared by all parties, but he was still gone.  I can almost remember the exact seat I was sitting in.  What a memory.

Jimmy V, who died at the age of 47 of bone cancer in 1993, set up the V Foundation, and to date, the V Foundation has raised over $90 million for cancer research.  Valvano left many memorable quotes with us and I thought I would share a few of them with you today.  His words give us all inspiration to live by.

• "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."
• Time is very precious to me.  I don't know how much I have left and I have some things that I would like to say.  Hopefully, at the end, I will have said something that will be important to other people too...I urge all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have.
• "Be a dreamer. If you don't know how to dream, you're dead."
• "I asked a ref if he could give me a technical foul for thinking bad things about him. He said, of course not. I said, well, I think you stink. And he gave me a technical. You can't trust em."
• "How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal, and you have to be willing to work for it."
• "My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me."
• "No matter what business you're in, you can't run in place or someone will pass you by. It doesn't matter how many games you've won."
• "There are 86,400 seconds in a day. It's up to you to decide what to do with them."
• "Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding."
• "Don't give up, don't ever give up."

Now he knew how to pull a red wagon!

PCQ