Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [131]
JOHN LACK:
We flew him up to New York—he was living in North Carolina at the time—and he calls me from the hotel. He says, “I can’t make it on the air. I’m too sick. I’m throwing up.” I said, “I’ll come and get you.” He said, “No, Johnny, I can’t do it. You’ve got to fill in for me.” I said, “Jimmy, I ain’t filling in for you, baby. I’m coming to get you.” When I got to the room, he was still saying he couldn’t do it, but I just wouldn’t listen. He said he couldn’t even tie his tie, so I tied it. Then I told him we were going. We wound up carrying him into the cab. When we got to Radio City, he saw the crowd and he began to gain his strength. I told him not to worry about the teleprompters.
CHARLEY STEINER:
In the green room that night, before he arrived, Dickie V and I were talking, and it was the only time I’ve seen Vitale nervous. He said, “Charley, I don’t know what to say. What do I do?” I said, “Be yourself.” So here’s Valvano. There were stairs on the set and he had to be helped up to do the speech. You couldn’t help but get chills. He did the speech, and there was this group hug. We all knew it was the last time we were ever going to see him.
STEVE BORNSTEIN:
I had been with Jim earlier in the day in his hotel room. It was really unclear whether he was physically going to be able to make it. I thought it was going to be sad and not what we had hoped for, but there was nothing we could do.
But when I saw him walk on that stage, twenty feet from me, I essentially saw—for the entire time he was on stage—the disease leave his body. And that was the most remarkable experience. He had always been a fabulous speaker and storyteller, but he summoned this speech up from deep, deep within. I’ve seen lots of television shows; I’ve never seen anything like that.
JOHN LACK:
Anytime you see the speech, it brings tears to your eyes. He was amazing. So afterward, he comes offstage and falls into my arms. We went to this little reception area in the back, and everyone was around him. Then he said, “This is the greatest day in my life.” I said, “Better than the championships?” He said, “Yes, better.”
Upbeat and passionate, Valvano regaled the crowd with stories about his family, his coaching career, and his philosophy of living. When the producers flashed a red light to warn him to wind things up, Valvano responded, “They got that screen up there flashing thirty seconds, like I care about that screen. I got tumors all over my body and I’m worried about some guy in the back going, ‘Thirty seconds’?” He kept right on rolling and closed by telling the audience, “Cancer can take away all of 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.” The crowd gave him a standing ovation. He died less than two months later. His tombstone quoted advice he gave during the ESPY speech: “Take time every day to laugh, to think, to cry.”
GEORGE BODENHEIMER:
Every year someone asks me this question: “Did you know what kind of significance this speech would have?” And of course the answer is no. You didn’t know he was going to deliver that speech until you heard it. And it was such a powerful speech that you were almost left numb. The V Foundation is fully endowed now, and has raised over $100 million for cancer research. The foundation is run akin to true ESPN style—that is, in a relatively low-budget manner. No one is living high on the hog. I’ve talked about ESPN being run as a family operation,