It's Jimmy V week in college basketball. It's a week of nearly 50 college basketball games in 10 days across the country, including the Coaches vs Cancer Classic, the ACC/Big 10 Challenge, and the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series. The games feature healthy young men and women playing the game with passion and emotion.
The games also help raise awareness about cancer and funds for cancer research.
In what has become an annual post for me, I ask you once again to take 10 minutes and watch Jim Valvano's inspiring speech at the 1993 ESPY awards.
Jim Valvano (1946-1993) died of cancer less than two months after giving this speech. In the 18 years since the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research was established, it has raised more than $100 million.
The motto for the foundation is "Don't give up, don't ever give up".
NC State, coached by Jimmy V, beat Houston in the most improbable upset ever to win the 1983 NCAA Basketball Championship. They never gave up. And they created March Madness.
You may click here or on the graphics in my sidebar to read more about the work the V Foundation and the Kay Yow WBCA Cancer Fund do, and to make a donation should you choose.
Please remember the words of Coach Valvano..."Cancer can take away all my physical ability. 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."
Peace to you all.
