FanPost

On Jim Valvano and Robin Williams


This is a sports site. Robin Williams apparently wasn't even a big baseball fan, until somewhat recently. But I had to say something about this guy. When the news bulletin cut in on Jeopardy, my thought was, "Oh no. What are we bombing or what was blown up now?" What a tremendous talent and human being, gone. The news of Robin Williams' death, though, really hit me. More than a lot of other notables' deaths. Why?

Listening to news, reading Tweets, the theme kept repeating: he made you laugh (sometimes hysterically), he could make you cry, and he sometimes made you think. And then it hit me: Jim Valvano.

Jimmy V is one of Rutgers' own, a favorite son. He played here, he coached here. And he was a little like Robin Williams. How? Try his own words.

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.

I heard him do a radio interview shortly before his death. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, every day it's important to do those three things above as you deal with others. Why? If you make them laugh, you've touched their soul. If you make them cry, you've touched their heart. And if you make them think, you've touched their mind. And, yeah, that's a heck of a day.

And from his ESPY speech in 1993:

Cancer can take away all 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.

Jim Valvano was inspirational. Robin Williams may be tragic. They died worlds apart, but both too soon, too young, and both depriving the world of a great human being. But they both had a smile and words that somehow got to you. Sad day for so many.

Think about the V Foundation.

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via i.dailymail.co.uk



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