At the inaugural ESPY Awards, presented by ESPN, on March 3, 1993, Jimmy Valvano gave a powerful speech. While accepting the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award, he announced the creation of the “Jimmy V Foundation”, 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 became legendary, and he closed the speech 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.

Sports gives us some of the most compelling human stories and this is one of them. If you would like to make a donation, you can go to JimmyV.org, where 100% of the money go towards cancer research.

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