Re-Live Jim Valvano’s Inspiring, Classic ESPY Speech

The ESPY Awards honor the best in the world of sports year after year, but its most defining moment may have occurred during the inaugural ceremony.

Back on March 3, 1993, Jim Valvano gave a speech that lives on to this very day when he accepted the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Battling cancer that had ravaged his body and would ultimately kill him nearly eight weeks later, the former North Carolina State basketball coach delivered a stirring, emotional and sometimes humorous speech that remains one of the most well-known speeches in sports history. It contains the now-famous line in which he implores, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”

Valvano created the V Foundation to help raise money for cancer research.