Thank you.
Thank you very much, thank you.
That that's the lowest I've ever seen Dick Vitale since the the owner of the
Detroit Pistons called him in and told him he should go into broadcasting.
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 was said on the tape I, and also, I don't
have one of those things going to cue cards, so I'm going to speak longer than
anybody else has spoken tonight but that's the way it goes.
Time, 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'll have something
that will be important to to other people too. But I can't help it, now and
I'm fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you
you go through your life and how's your day and nothing has changed for me. As
Dick said I'm a very emotional passionate man, I can't help it. That's being the
son of Rocco and Angelina Valvano. It comes with the territory, right? We hug we
kiss we love and 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 do this every day of our life you're going to have, what a wonderful. 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. And so I can't help, I rode on a plane
up today what makes you, Mike Krzyzewski, my my good friend and a wonderful coach.
What people don't realize, he's a ten times better person than he is a coach
and we know he's a great coach. He's meant a lot to me these last five or six
months of my battle. But when I look at Mike, I think we competed against each
other as players. I coached against him for 15 years and I always have to think
about what's important in life is to think to me at three things. Where you
started, where you are, where you going to be. Those are the three things that I try
and do every day. You know, when I think about getting up and giving a speech, I
can't help it I have to remember the first speech I ever gave. I was
coaching at Rutgers University. It was my first job. Oh like oh, that's wonderful.
And I was the freshman coach. That's when freshmen played on freshman team, and I
was so fired up about my first job as Lou Holtz coach Holtz said what was it like
the first job you had right, the very first time you stood in the locker room
to give a pep talk. That's a special place the locker room for a coach to
give a talk. So my idol as a coach was Vince Lombardi
and I read this book called Commitment to Excellence by Vince Lombardi and in
the book Lombardi talked about the first time he spoke before his Green Bay
Packer team in the locker room, and I'm reading this and Lombardi said
he was thinking should it be a long talk a short talk, but he wanted to be
emotional. He said be brief, and this is what he did. He normally ya get in the locker room
I don't know 25 minutes a half-hour before the team takes the field, you do
your lecture notes and then you give the great Newt Rockne talk. We all do, speech
number 84, you pull him right out you get you get ready get your squad ready. It was
the first one I ever gave and I read this thing Lombardi what he said was he
didn't go in. He waited. His team was wondering where is he? Where is this
great coach? He's not there. Ten minutes, he's still not there.
Three minutes before they have to take the field Lombardi comes in bangs the door
open, and I think you all remember what great presence he had, right? Great
presence. He walked in and he just walked back and forth like this just walking,
staring at the players, and he said all eyes on me. And I'm reading this in his book.
And I'm getting a picture of Vince Lombardi before his first game and he said,
gentlemen, we will be successful this year. You can focus on three things and
three things only. Your family, your religion, and the Green
Bay Packers. And he's like, they knocked the walls down, the rest was
history. I said that's beautiful, I'm gonna do it.
Your family, your religion, and Rutgers basketball, that's it. I had it
I'm, listen I'm 21 years old. The kids I'm coaching are 19 all right?
And uh and I'm going to be the greatest coach in the world, the next Lombardi, and
I'm ready and I'm practicing right beside the locker room and the manager tells me you
got to go in. Not yet, not yet. Family, religion, Rutgers basketball. All eyes
on me. I got it, I got it. And now finally he said three minutes, I said fine. True
story, I go to knock the doors open just like
the Lombardi. Boom! They didn't open. I almost broke my arm. I was like you always
, it didn't open. Now I'm down the players are looking ya know, coach, help
the coach up, help him up, you know. And now I did like Lombardi I walked back
and forth and I was going like that with my arm, getting the feeling back in it. And
finally I said gentlemen, all eyes on me. And these kids wanted to play, they're 19. Let's go!
I said gentlemen we'll be successful
this year if you can focus on three things in three things only! They said yeah!
They're your family, your religion, and the Green Bay Packers I told them. I did that I
remember that.
(Applause)
I remember. I remember where I came from. It's so important to know where you are
and I know where I am right now. How do you go from where you are to where you want to
be? And I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life, you have to have a
dream, a goal. You have to be willing to work for it. I talked about my family. My
family is so important. People think I have courage, the courage of my family is
my wife Pam, my three daughters here Nicole
Jamie, Leanne. My mom who is right here too, and, and (applause)
And the screen is flashing up
there thirty seconds, like I care about that screen right now huh?
I got I got I got tumors all over my body, I'm worried about some guy in the back goin' 30
seconds huh? You got a lot, hey, Và Fà a Napoli, buddy. You got a lot.
(Applause)
I uh, 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 Ralph Waldo
Emerson said, "Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm," to keep
your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to
work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality. Now I look
at where I am now, and I know what I want to do. What I would like to be able to do is
to spend whatever time I have left and to give, and maybe, some hope to others.
Arthur Ashe Foundation is a wonderful thing, and AIDS, the amount of
money pouring in for AIDS is not enough, but it is significant. But if I told you
it's ten times the amount that comes in for cancer research, I also told you that
500,000 people will die this year of cancer and I also tell you that one in
every four will be afflicted with this disease. And yet somehow, we seem to
have put it in a little bit of the background. I want to bring it back on
the front table. We need your help. I need your help.
We need money for research. It may not save my life. It may save my children's
lives. It may save someone you love. And it's very important. And ESPN has been so
kind to support me in this endeavor and allow me to announce tonight, that with
ESPN's support, which means what? Their money and their dollars, and
they're helping me. We are starting the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.
(Applause)
And its motto is, "Don't give up ... don't ever give up." And 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. If you see me, smile and maybe give me a hug.
That's important to me too. But try if you can to support, whether it's AIDS or
the cancer foundation, so that someone else might survive, might prosper and
might actually be cured of this dreaded disease. I can't thank ESPN enough for
allowing this to happen, and I'm going to work as hard as I can, you know, for
cancer research and hopefully we'll be maybe we'll have some cures and some
breakthroughs. And I'd like to think, I'm going to fight my brains out to be back
here again next year for the Arthur Ashe recipient. I want to give it next year!
(Applause)
I know, I gotta go, I gotta go. And I got one last thing, and I said it
before, and I'm gonna say it again: 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. I thank you,
and God bless you all.
(Applause)