The US Athletic Hall of Fame - Coaches 2023
Jim Valvano
- Contest: The US Athletic Hall of Fame - Coaches 2023
- Embed from Getty Images
- Sport(s): Basketball
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Statistics:
1 NCAA Division I Tournament Win (1983)
1 NCAA Division I Final Four (1983)
2 ACC Regular Season Championships (1985 & 1989)
2 ACC Tournament Wins (1983 & 1987)
1 ACC Coach of the Year (1989)
346-210 NCAA Record
12-8 Division I Tournament Record -
Jim Valvano began his coaching career as an assistant at Rutgers immediately after finishing his run as a player with the Scarlet Knights. He would later coach for Johns Hopkins and Bucknell, but it was at Iona where Valvano was first noticed. He brought the Gaels to the NCAA Tournament in both 1979 and 1980, with a trip to the second round in the latter year. With a higher profile, "Jimmy V" was off to the Atlantic Coast Conference at North Carolina State.
Valvano and the Wolfpack shocked the world in 1983 when as a no. 6 seed, they won the tournament. Valvano’s smile and post-game reactions turned him into a beloved figure, and his team’s 1983 squad remains one of the greatest stories in sports.
Valvano stayed with NC State until 1990, taking them to two more Elite Eights.
Valvano contracted cancer in 1992, and at the 1993 ESPY Awards, he gave the impassioned "Don't Give Up…Don't Ever Give Up" speech. As he was dying, Valvano remained a beacon of positivity, and his courage became legendary. He died a few months later.
We are proud to nominate Jim Valvano for the United States Athletic Hall of Fame.
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