Some of you might not get that joke in the title.  That’s OK.

In the fall of 1982 I met a man.  He was a very amazing man.

He was a good man, but also a very imperfect man.  Though at the time, at 15 years old, I didn’t realize that part because I was starstruck.

He had been hired two years earlier to be the head basketball coach at NC State University.

Then, in 1983 he lead us to the NCAA Championship.  And almost a couple more in the next few years.

In 1989, a man named Golenbock published a book.

Of course this triggered a reaction.  The NCAA swooped in to investigate.  But the worst part of it was the local press as they almost literally crucified Valvano in public on a daily basis.

The NCAA investigation ended up proving nearly everything in the book was made up and false.  Nothing but lies from a player who was disconcerted.  There were some minor infractions, but nothing compared to what’s permitted to be going on now.

I’m looking at you, U*NC.

But the hell this ordeal put this man through?  As I said, he was imperfect.  He had his faults.  And since his death, I’ve learned that he was more imperfect than I knew then, when I was a dumb kid.

The punishment did not fit the crime.

But that’s not the point of the story.  The point of the story is this.

I saw him one last time in early 1993.  I’m sure he didn’t remember me by that point, and that’s OK.  But he was gone less than 2 months later.

But I will go to my grave knowing that the stress of that whole situation is what killed him.

Before he went, however, he started something pretty special.  Donate to it if you can.

And he was right….

If you laugh, you think and you cry?  That’s a full day, that’s a heckuva day.

Enjoy your lives.  You never know when that will end.

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