Madison Square Garden, presented by ESPN. While accepting the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award, he announced the creation of The V Foundation for Cancer Research, an organization dedicated to finding a cure for cancer. He announced that the foundation's motto would be "Don't Give Up...Don't Ever Give Up". During his speech, the teleprompter stated that he had thirty seconds left, to which Valvano responded, "That screen up there is flashing 30 seconds, like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body and I'm worried about some guy in the back going '30 seconds'". His speech included this statement: To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special. Valvano's ESPY acceptance speech became legendary. He closed by saying that "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. I thank you and God bless you all." He received a standing ovation. Valvano's hair was expected to fall out with chemotherapy treatment, but it didn't. Along with his ever-positive outlook, this masked to the public how serious his sickness was and the amount of pain he was dealing with. He preemptively had his head shaved and was prepared to use a variety of whimsical wigs on his broadcasts, but his own hair remained. Yankees New York native Valvano had always wanted to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. He had been given that honor for the 1993 season opener to be held on April 12, but he was too ill to do so. Coaching rival and friend Dean Smith, one week removed from leading North Carolina to the national championship, substituted for Valvano. Death Valvano died at age 47 on April 28, 1993, less than two months after his famous ESPY