Ray Romano will play Jimmy V in new movie about NC State basketball coach
A movie about the life of former NC State basketball coach Jim Valvano is in the works, reports Deadline, with “Everybody Loves Raymond” star Ray Romano playing the lead role.
Romano will also produce the film, according to Deadline, and the script will be from Jim Strouse (“The Winning Season”).
According to Deadline, who reported the news exclusively on Monday, “the Valvano family will provide key resources for the film, serving as executive producers.”
Valvano was the men’s basketball coach at North Carolina State from 1980 to 1990, serving as athletic director for four of those years.
He led his underdog Wolfpack team — known as “The Cardiac Pack” — to an NCAA national championship in 1983, defeating the heavily favored Houston Cougars with a buzzer-beating dunk. He was fired in April 1990 after a controversy over allegations of academic negligence in the basketball program, and became an announcer for ESPN.
Valvano was diagnosed with metastatic bone cancer in 1992 and gave his “Don’t Give Up” speech during the first ESPY awards in 1993, while accepting the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award.
He founded the V Foundation for Cancer Research before he died on April 28, 1993.
Other Valvano moments in popular culture
▪ Valvano, always an entertaining storyteller, was a guest on four episodes of “The Late Show with David Letterman” and made three appearances on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” according to IMDb.
▪ Valvano and ESPN announcer Dick Vitale appeared as V &V and Sons movers in a Feb. 6, 1992 episode of “The Cosby Show,” in an episode in which Sondra and Elvin move out of the Cosby brownstone and into their own home.
▪ A poster of Valvano can be seen in the background of a scene in the pilot episode of the AppleTV+ hit series “Ted Lasso,” thanks to NC State alum Kip Kroeger, a supervising post-production producer on the show. The poster shows Valvano after winning the ‘83 championship and was hung when there was a need for a poster of an underdog moment from the world of sports, Kroeger told The N&O in October 2021.
This story was originally published May 9, 2022 at 6:10 PM.
