Valvano's older brother, Nick, thinks he would have returned to coaching basketball despite the scars and strain of his final days at N.C. State, when he was pushed out following investigations into NCAA rules violations and academic irregularities.

Dick Vitale also could see Valvano back in coaching, in college or the NBA. But Vitale says Valvano, had he lived, might also have become an icon as a television talk-show host.

"With his energy and enthusiasm, with his ability make to people laugh, he could have been a superstar in the business," said Vitale, a college basketball analyst for ESPN and ABC.

Valvano died of cancer in 1993, at age 47. He was eulogized as a championship coach, as the man who led N.C. State on one of the most thrilling tournament rides in basketball history, coaching the Wolfpack to the ACC championship and the NCAA championship in 1983. He was praised as a man who showed great courage as he battled the disease that ravaged his body.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of State's amazing run, when "Cardiac Pack" and "survive and advance" -- a term Valvano used over and over that March -- became a lasting part of college basketball's vernacular. It has been 15 years since the creation of the V Foundation for Cancer Research, which Valvano announced in March 1993 during his moving speech on ESPN's ESPY Awards telecast after receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award.

Death 'was not in vain'

But what of his legacy? All these years later, how should Valvano be remembered -- as a coach who won a championship, or as a man who championed the fight against cancer?

"I think it should be [that] he was a man who came and right away talked about a dream of winning a national championship," said Sidney Lowe, the Pack's senior point guard in '83 and now State's coach. "And the fact he went out and he did it. He did what he said he was going to do.

"I think his legacy should be that he was a man who wanted the best for N.C. State, and he dreamed. He dreamed it all."

Valvano's widow, Pam, said the national championship was "unbelievable," an opportunity of a lifetime.

"But I think to myself now that with what we've been able to do with the V Foundation, Jim's death was not in vain, and that we've been able to help so many people," she said. "The players were so wonderful on the road to the national championship, and the championship was wonderful. But if we can help other people and perhaps find a cure for the disease, that would mean more than the championship.

"I think that would have pleased Jim most. I think it would have pleased him a lot."

The ESPY speech

Nick Valvano is chief executive officer of the V Foundation in Cary, which has raised more than $70 million to fund cancer research grants. As he travels the country, he said, he finds that many people now remember Jimmy V for the ESPY speech -- shown each year by ESPN, and a staple on YouTube -- than for his 10 years at N.C. State or the '83 run.

"We have sort of a distorted view here in our area because basketball is such an incredible part of our lives," Nick Valvano said. "But I had one woman in Florida who told me she was moved by the ESPY speech and then said, 'You know, your brother was one heck of a football coach.'

"I had to laugh a little. I could just hear Jim saying, 'Yeah, I could have coached that, too.' "

Nick Valvano noted that during the ESPYs, Jim talked of the need for more money for cancer research and said, "It may not save my life. It may save my children's lives. It may save someone you love."

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