“Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” As I prepared to watch Louisville and Arizona battle it out on the court in the Jimmy V Basketball Classic, I also dreaded an upcoming ECHO deadline. As I watched ESPN’s tribute to Jim Valvano before the game, though, I knew my story. Jim Valvano was a former college basketball coach of North Carolina State for 10 years, and he won an NCAA Championship in 1983. In June of 1992, Valvano was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He made the best of the final 10 months of his life before his death in April of 1983. He spent that time living his life to the fullest. He told people, “To me, there are three things we should do every day–laugh, think and cry. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. You do that seven days a week; you’re going to have something special.” Valvano delivered a memorable speech at the ESPY Awards (sports awards ceremony presented by ESPN), just less than two months before his death. In this speech, he also announced the creation of the Jimmy V Foundation, which is a charity dedicated to finding a cure for cancer. The V Foundation sponsors the Jimmy V Classic (basketball) and the Jimmy V Celebrity Golf Classic, with all of the proceeds going towards cancer research. The foundation also focuses on cancer education and creates an awareness of the importance of the war on cancer. In his speech and his life’s actions, Valvano advocated living out one’s dreams and having an extreme passion for life. “Be a dreamer. If you don’t know how to dream, you’re dead,” he said. “How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have a dream, a goal, and you have to be willing to work on it.” As a coach and as a cancer patient, Valvano inspired many. He was an inspiration to his players, his family, his fans, and millions of others. The motto of his foundation, listed at the beginning of this article, is a testament to how Valvano dealt with his cancer. He never gave up. He fought it until the end, and he continues to fight it even after his death. “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. And those three things are going to carry on forever.” Valvano got a long standing ovation for his speech, which was more of a summary of his life that shortly would come to a close. From the moment of his apparent pending death, Valvano spent the remainder of his time on earth helping others, while staring death face to face. He never backed down. He didn’t let cancer take away the joys of his life, and he took advantage of what he had left and what he had been given.