New York Times’ The Athletic Feature: Jim Valvano’s Iconic ESPYS Speech
The New York Times' The Athletic recently published a feature story about Jim Valvano's iconic ESPYS Speech that launched the V Foundation for Cancer Research. The story talks with professors who share the speech is a masterclass in public speaking.
Below are a few paragraphs from the article. The full story can be read here.
One day earlier this summer, Allison Shapira pulled up a video she’d never seen before and hit play.
On the screen was Jim Valvano, the legendary basketball coach from North Carolina State, affectionately known as Jimmy V, standing on stage at the 1993 ESPY Awards. Valvano was there to accept the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage Award and announce the creation of the V Foundation for Cancer Research. He wore a black tux and a big smile and delivered one of the most powerful speeches in sports history.
For 10 minutes, Shapira, an adjunct lecturer at Harvard and the CEO of Global Public Speaking, watched the speech for the first time. She cried and called her dad.
“Have you ever seen this?” she asked him. “Oh my God.”
For anyone who has watched the speech, it was a familiar reaction. And yet Shapira, who has watched hundreds of speeches, had never seen it. Neither had Steven D. Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins whose research examines the communication behaviors of effective leaders.
It underscored a surprising contradiction about Valvano’s speech: Among sports fans, it remains a sacred text, an inspirational call to action that has helped grant nearly $400 million for cancer research.
