Rhetorical Analysis Of Jim Valvano's Speech

Jim Valvano is a legend. On March 3, 1993 at the ESPYs, Valvano was awarded the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage. In making his acknowledgment discourse, a growth stricken Valvano moves his audience at Madison Square Garden and everybody viewing the nation over to tears, to laughs, and even to a reality check with an end goal to bring issues to light and subsidizing for disease research. In his dialog, he notes to always remember about "where you started." Therefore, it would be appropriate to begin toward the start of Valvano's life and profession to see what shaped this man to convey such a discourse. As Valvano tells in his speech, he was the pleased child of Rocco and Angelina Valvano, and naturally introduced to an Italian society. Valvano had a concern for the duration of his life. He played ball at Seaford High School and Rutgers University, and after graduating, was the freshman men's basketball coach at Rutgers. He later earned head coaching positions at Johns Hopkins, Bucknell, Iona, and at North Carolina State where he stayed for a long time and won a national title in 1983. Later, he turned into a commentator for ESPN. Even with the greater part of this achievement, Valvano never …show more content…
The targeted audience educated adult sports fans. He gets the audience’s attention by referencing iconic figures in history to make his point. For example, he quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm” to explain his claim about the importance of zeal for life. Emerson is a familiar name to people that have a higher educational background. The ultimate purpose of his speech is to encourage people to donate money to cancer research. People with a higher education usually have higher salaries. This allows Valvano to focus on this specific demographic. This is why Valvano doesn’t connect with a younger demographic because they don’t have much money to