Jimmy V continues to be bigger in death than in life.
Ever wonder why sports writers of Jim Valvano’s vintage are rarely caught upchucking with praise over him as more than the former N.C. State basketball coach and funny man? That’s because those who were in Valvano’s peer group see the irony, and perhaps paradox, in how Jimmy V’s life changed literally and figuratively when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1992.
Valvano was a rogue, to put it mildly, as a coach who put himself first in almost everything he did. After taking the Cardiac Pack to the 1983 NCAA championship, he talked his way into the athletic directorship in West Raleigh. Neither job lasted very long after rumors and then charges of rules violations surrounded him and his program. For the two years before his fatal diagnosis, V had his own ESPN road show, where he owned every room he entered.
Yes, it was tragic that he got sick, but that’s when the irony began and has continued to bestow near-sainthood on Jimmy V. In his “Never Give Up” speech that they still ram down our throats 23 years later, Valvano praises Mike Krzyzewski for being such a good friend for the last few months of his life. Why not before? That’s because those who covered them both know they were far from close, much more fierce competitors with diametrically opposing styles. In spring of ’93, Krzyzewski WAS by his side during his dying months at Duke, which to me says more about Coach K than it does about Coach V.
Even the Jimmy V Foundation has turned out to be somewhat of a fraud, part of the growing notion that cancer research is dedicated to treatment but not to prevention or cure, lest the world’s economy would crumble in a multi-billion-dollar meltdown. Books and dozens of articles have been written on the theory, which makes financial if not moral sense. In the micro, the Jimmy V non-profit has undergone several investigations over just where all the money raised has gone.
So whenever his famous ESPY’s speech comes on, I can’t help but wonder what we’d think of Valvano today had he never gotten ill.
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