SAMPLE SPEECH 12.3

1993 ESPY speech

COACH JIM VALVANO

I can’t tell you what an honor it is to even be mentioned in the same breath with Arthur Ashe. This is something I certainly will treasure forever. But, as it was said on the tape, and I also don’t have one of those things going with the cue cards, so I’m going to speak longer than anybody else has spoken tonight. That’s the way it goes. 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.

Valvano reveals humility by stating how honored he is to be compared to tennis champion Arthur Ashe—who strove to raise awareness and funds for AIDS research before succumbing to the disease in 1993.

But, I can’t help it. Now I’m fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how’s your day, and nothing is changed for me. As Dick said, I’m a very emotional and passionate man. I can’t help it. That’s being the son of Rocco and Angelina Valvano. It comes with the territory. We hug, we kiss, we love. When people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it’s the same thing. 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. 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. . . .

As is common in award speeches, Valvano pays homage to his family—in this case, his parents.

Valvano encourages the audience with three simple, inspirational things they can do to make every day count.

I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm,” to keep your dreams alive in spite of whatever problems you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality. . . .

Valvano makes an emotional appeal to the audience.

“Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” That’s what I’m going to try to do every minute that I have left. I will thank God for the day and the moment I have. . . .

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.

Source: From ESPY Speech by Coach Jim Valvano, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up,” March 4, 1993. Retrieved from http://www.jimmyv.org/about-us/remembering-jim/jimmy-v-espy-awards-speech/