V

V is for Victory.

V was for Hope.

V said “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”

And They didn’t. 

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He had told them the first day they met.   “We are going to win a National Championship.”

 They failed for two years, and time was running out, most of them were seniors in college.  Last chance.

 They won when nobody had given them a chance.

Jimmy V joked even his mother didn’t give them much of a chance.

Jimmy V  believed in them.  He believed in himself, and his father believed in him too, and showed it.  He didn’t give up.   He never, never gave up on them  — or himself.  He fought to the day he died of cancer. His goal to beat cancer, in some sense, hasn’t stopped —  creating  the V Foundation which has raised a 100 million dollars for research in the last 20 years since his death.

It was considered a miracle that North Carolina State basketball team won the 1983 NCAA National Championship — coach Jimmy Valvano never stopped believing that they would win.

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James Thomas Anthony “Jimmy” Valvano, Performer Artisan, (March 10, 1946 – April 28, 1993), nicknamed Jimmy V, was an American college basketball coach. 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. [Wikipedia, revised]

In basketball the champions are the only ones who can “cut the net.”  Jimmy V practiced with his team cutting down the net, every year.

“I love the job I do.”

Performers are the people for whom it can truly be said “all the world’s a stage.” Born entertainers, they love the excitement of playing to an audience, and will quickly become the center of attention wherever they are. Performers aren’t comfortable being alone, and seek the company of others whenever possible — which they usually find, for they make wonderful playmates. Performers are smooth, talkative, and witty; they always seem to know the latest jokes and stories, and are quick with wisecracks and wordplay-nothing is so serious or sacred that it can’t be made fun of. [Please Understand Me II]

If you don’t work hard you will not succeed.  But if you do what you love, it isn’t hard work.

Other Performer Artisans include:  Janis Joplin, Gene Krupa, Louis Armstrong, Alex Karras, Kim Jong Un, Phyllis Diller, Jim Cramer, Magic Johnson, Josephine Baker, Whitney Houston, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

4 thoughts on “V”

  1. Dave, can you possibly go into more detail as to how Jimmy V is a Performer? I wrote a post on the forum a couple years back in which I had him on my list of “N” (Rational and Idealist) coaches. I thought he was a Teacher Idealist, albeit mostly based on his ESPY speech. His advice to engage yourself in things to make you laugh and cry every day, along with never giving up, seemed like a Mentor’s words of wisdom for self-development and living a healthy and wholesome life. While this might be sound advice for an Artisan to follow, I can’t see the V as an Artisan based on what I know so far.

    1. You should look at why Valvano resigned from his dream job.

      “NC State placed its basketball program on probation for two years (the maximum) and was banned from participating in the 1990 NCAA tournament. The state-appointed Poole Commission issued a 32-page report that concluded that there were no major violations of NCAA regulations, and that Valvano and his staff’s inadequate oversight of players’ academic progress violated “the spirit, not the letter of the law.” After this report, Valvano was forced to resign as the school’s athletic director in October 1989. He remained as basketball coach through the 1989–1990 season. Under subsequent pressure from the school’s faculty and new Chancellor, Valvano negotiated a settlement with NC State and resigned as basketball coach on April 7, 1990. Six separate entities investigated Valvano and the NC State basketball program including the NC State Faculty Senate, the North Carolina Attorney General, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, the NC State Board of Trustees, and the NCAA. None of them found any recruiting or financial improprieties. However, a school investigation did reveal that Valvano’s student athletes did not perform well in the classroom, as only 11 of the players that he coached prior to 1988 had maintained an average of C or better.”

      Moreover, Dereck Wittenberg when talking about Valvano, after Wittenberg (that senior who was a key for the 83 championship) left — he said coach V didn’t attend to the players as much, for he was too busy giving talks and interviews once the fame hit. He really didn’t watch out for his players, academically. Inspiring guy, but Performers can be that. Lastly, my father considers the hand gestures of the Temperaments, and watching Valvano, he doesn’t have the “flapping of the Idealist’s hand” – rather he has more Artisan gestures (on the other hand, he is Italian — that could confuse).

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