Jim Valvano, better known as Jimmy V, was a men's basketball coach in the NCAA for many years and is remembered most for coaching his North Carolina State Wolf pack squad to the 1983 national championship over the Juggernaut University of Houston team. That team established the term "Cinderella" as no one ever expected them to win the way that they won. Jim Valvano received some horrible news in the middle of 1992. His doctors told him that he had terminal cancer. Several months later, he received the Arthur Ashe Courage award at the 1993 ESPY Awards presented by ESPN. He accepted the award and gave one of the most memorable speeches in sports history where he introduced the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer research that has since raised millions of dollars for cancer research. .
The seven P's of rhetoric can be used to analyze a speech in many different ways. Jimmy V's speech was public because he addressed a public issue of cancer. The purpose of his speech was basically to inform the public how the Jimmy V foundation for cancer research, but it turned into Jimmy V telling people that they should try to live as full of a life as possible. The speech was also propositional it was developed through complete thoughts and was based on asking others to help with the problem at hand. Jimmy V was very poetic when he was talking about where people were going in life. The "where you started, where you are, and where you are gonna be" section addressed parts of life that not many discuss or think about. He attempted to solve a problem as well. Jimmy V looked at the disease of cancer and stated how the money donated to AIDS is ten times more than the money donated to cancer research. To help solve the problem, along with ESPN, he started the Jimmy V foundation for cancer research to give others a better chance to live than he did. For this reason, Jimmy V's speech was also pragmatic.
