In March of 1993, less than two months before he died of cancer, college basketball coach Jim Valvano gave one of the most inspirational speeches of all time at the ESPN ESPY Awards.
Sports fans now know it as simply "the Jimmy V speech," but you could put Valvano's words up against anyone else's — sports or otherwise — in the pantheon of testaments to wringing every last drop of pleasure from life.
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"Don't give up. Don't ever give up," Valvano implored the crowd at that year's ESPY awards, in addition to millions more YouTube viewers in the decades since. His speech — alternately hilarious and heartbreaking — also included this three-part bit of transcendent advice:
To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. 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. It 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.
Valvano announced the founding of The V Foundation for Cancer Research that same day. It's since raised more than $115 million in the fight against cancer. His ESPY speech is one of the foundation's key fundraising motivators.
The video atop this post, however, uses it in a new way that takes the speech's universal appeal then adds a twist for an extra measure of inspiration. Young cancer patients from Duke Children's Hospital recite some of the Jimmy V speech's most iconic lines to promote the former coach's foundation. The result is a touching bit of marketing, embedded above, that's worth passing along.
And, because it never gets old, here again is Jimmy V's famous speech:

Homepage image: ESPN, YouTube