"Don't Give Up" by Jim Valvano

(REACTION PAPER)

"Never give up!" Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding". These were the words that
the late Jimmy Valvano have to his audience at the ESPY Awards on March 3rd 1993. Almost 21 years
ago, "Jimmy V" as he was known gave his speech because he was not told to; rather, he gave his speech
because he was qualified to influence a revolution.

James wanted to accomplish all of his dreams with blood, sweat, and tears of hard work, and loyalty to
the game he loved. Those blood, sweat and tears began to develop before the speech even started, and
transpired till the very end, setting up how Valvano would approach what he would actually say. The
first clip of the speech would be Jimmy V walking up the stage weary about the possibility of falling in
front of the soon to be audience.

For anybody who knows somebody who has, or who had cancer, walking up those few steps to get onto
the stage were basicaly equivalent to climbing Mount Everest. Vigilant of potentially falling and showing
how weak he actually was only developed Valvano's emotional tone of the speech that never gave way.
Since he did not have a preplanned speech he spoke from his heart analyzing how close one can come
from failure, to how much more you need to achieve for success. As words started sputtering out,
Valvano used his emotional tone to organize what he actually wanted to inspire throughout his speech.

However, Valvano wants us to be aware of cancer research because it is just as important as AIDS
research. From being the patient one because of cancer, he said that the three things he do everyday is
to laugh, think and we should have emotions moved to tears, either happiness or joy.