for the bad days, little motivation.

[thesightless]

umm, i was having a bad day, like really bad. one of those days when you wonder what the point of even waking up everyday. just some annoying and dumb things i let get to me. but whenever i have one of these days i remember this.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jimvalvanoespyaward.htm

i figured i would share it because, personally, i find it one of the single most motivational and inspiring things i have ever seen. our older members will remember this tragic story, the younger ones probably have never even heard of it.

for those who havent, jimmy V was a historic college basketball coach, the ultimate cinderella story early on, taking young teams to beat the goliaths. as his career grew he obviously gained fame. eh. but the story goes and in 1992 jimmy was diagnosed with terminal cancer throughout his entire body. at the time of the speech he had no idea of how long he had, but everyone knew it was not going to be long at all. jimmy knew he was dying. upon receiving the auther ashe award, he couldnt even walk himself up the stairs to speak. he gave the speech.

2 months later jim died. and since then there is a week long tourney at MSG that raises money for his foundation.

hope someone enjoys it.

[skahound]

Re: for the bad days, little motivation.

I needed that today Sean, thanks. It definitely is one of those days today.

[Jenks]

Re: for the bad days, little motivation.

Have seen this before Sean, always good to watch it again. Thx.

love this part- "And...that screen is flashing up there thirty seconds like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body. I'm worried about some guy in the back going thirty seconds, huh? You got a lot, hey va fa napoli, buddy. You got a lot."

[thesightless]

Re: for the bad days, little motivation.

when he says this, you cant help but feel humbled and sad, but yet have a positive feeling about the day. i dont know this just always hit me the most.

Their money and their dollars and they're helping me-we are starting the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. And it's motto is "Don't give up, don't ever give up." That's what I'm going to try to do every minute that I have left. I will thank God for the day and the moment I have. If you see me, smile and give me a hug. That's important to me too. But try if you can to support, whether it's AIDS or the cancer foundation, so that someone else might survive, might prosper and might actually be cured of this dreaded disease. I can't thank ESPN enough for allowing this to happen. I'm going to work as hard as I can for cancer research and hopefully, maybe, we'll have some cures and some breakthroughs. I'd like to think, I'm going to fight my brains out to be back here again next year for the Arthur Ashe recipient. I want to give it next year!
I know, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I said it before, and I want to say it again. Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.
I thank you and God bless you all.

oh yeah and this part.

This is something I certainly will treasure forever. But, as it was said on the tape, and I also don't have one of those things going with the cue cards, so I'm going to speak longer than anybody else has spoken tonight. That's the way it goes. Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have left and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I will have said something that will be important to other people too

13 years later, and he is still saying things that matter to a lot of ppl.

[chanty]

Re: for the bad days, little motivation.

He can make you laugh, cry and think all at the same time!