Jim Valvano

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Jim Valvano bigraphy, stories - American basketball player-coach

Jim Valvano : biography

March 10, 1946 – April 28, 1993

James Thomas Anthony "Jim" Valvano (March 10, 1946 – April 28, 1993), nicknamed Jimmy V, was an American college basketball coach and broadcaster. He is considered the creator of the intentional foul.

While the head basketball coach at North Carolina State University, he won the 1983 NCAA Basketball Tournament against long odds. Valvano is not only remembered for running up and down the court after winning the 1983 NCAA championship, seemingly in disbelief and looking for someone to hug, but also for his inspirational 1993 ESPY Awards speech, given just eight weeks before he died of cancer.

Legacy

A 1996 TV movie titled Never Give Up: The Jimmy V Story, starred Anthony LaPaglia as Valvano. The movie was filmed in various locations including Wilmington, North Carolina and on the campus of UNCW.

In 1993, Valvano was inducted into the Rutgers Basketball Hall of Fame. In 1999, Valvano was inducted into both the Hall of Distinguished Alumni at Rutgers University and the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2004, Valvano was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. In 2012, he was named to the first class of the NC State Athletics Hall of Fame.

In 2013, ESPN’s 30 for 30 Films created a film about NC State’s 1983 Championship run, called "Survive and Advance". Along with the 1983 season, it also covered the final months of his life against cancer.

Biography

Personal

Valvano was the middle child of Rocco, and Angelina Valvano, and was born in Corona, Queens, New York. Valvano was a three-sport athlete at Seaford High School in Seaford on Long Island and graduated in 1963. He married his high school sweetheart, Pamela Levine, and they had three daughters: Nicole, Jamie, and Lee Ann. His younger brother Bob is a sportscaster and former basketball coach.

Vince Lombardi was Valvano’s role model. Valvano told an ESPY audience, on March 3, 1993, that he took some of Lombardi’s inspirational speeches out of his book Commitment to Excellence, and used them with his team. Valvano discussed how he planned to use Lombardi’s speech to the Green Bay Packers in front of his Rutgers freshman basketball team prior to his first game as their coach.

College playing career

Valvano was a point guard at Rutgers University in 1967, where he partnered with first-team All-American Bob Lloyd in the backcourt. Under the leadership of Valvano and Lloyd, Rutgers finished third in the 1967 National Invitation Tournament (NIT), which was the last basketball tournament held at the old Madison Square Garden. (The 1967 NCAA Tournament field was just 23 teams and the NIT invited 14 teams.) He was named Senior Athlete of the Year at Rutgers in 1967, and graduated with a degree in English in 1967.

Coaching career

Following graduation, Valvano began his coaching career at Rutgers as the freshman coach and assistant for the varsity. His 19-year career as a head basketball coach began at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for a season, then was an assistant at Connecticut for two years. He was then the head coach at Bucknell, Iona, and North Carolina State. Following Norm Sloan’s departure to Florida, Valvano was hired at NC State on March 27, 1980, and made his debut on November 29, when the Wolfpack defeated UNC-Wilmington 83-59. During his 10 year NC State career, Valvano’s teams were the ACC Tournament Champions in 1983 and 1987 and the ACC regular season champions in 1985 and 1989. The Wolfpack won the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship in 1983, in addition to advancing to the NCAA Elite 8 in 1985 and 1986. ‘Coach V’ was voted ACC Coach of the Year in 1989. Valvano became NC State’s athletic director in 1986. His overall record at NC State was 209–114 () and his career record as a head coach was 346–210 ().

Valvano’s famous reaction of running around on the court looking for somebody to hug in the moments after the Wolfpack victory came after the game-winning shot in the 1983 NCAA finals. Dereck Whittenburg heaved a last-second desperation shot that was caught short of the rim and dunked by Lorenzo Charles as time expired. By a score of 54–52, NC State beat a top seeded University of Houston team that was on a 26-game winning streak and was led by future Basketball Hall of Famers Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon. Previously, NC State won the college basketball championship in 1974 under Sloan; the Wolfpack ended UCLA’s streak of seven consecutive national titles when it beat the Bruins 80-77 in overtime in the national semi-final game.