With the 2019 ESPYs coming up Wednesday night, it’s a time to once again remember Jimmy Valvano and the inspiring speech he delivered at the 1993 edition of the ESPN awards show.
Valvano — who had won a national championship with NC State a decade earlier in the buzzer-beater dunk of an airball that left the coach famously looking around for someone to hug — was terminally ill with cancer, when he told the world, “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.”
Before Wednesday night, The V Foundation for Cancer Research released a video of Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and ESPN personality Dick Vitale reading a letter about their late friend. It’s similarly inspiring:
Here’s Valvano’s original speech:
