I will thank God for the day and the moment I have.

Jim Valvano (1946–1993), the charismatic NCAA championship–winning coach of NC State, became a national symbol of courage after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer. The line is associated with his widely broadcast acceptance speech for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the inaugural ESPY Awards, delivered in 1993, shortly before his death. In that speech Valvano urged people to “laugh, think, and cry” every day and to live fully despite illness. The quote reflects the religiously inflected gratitude and present-mindedness he emphasized while confronting limited time and physical decline.

The sentence compresses Valvano’s core message: life’s value is not measured by length or achievement but by the conscious appreciation of each day and even each moment. Thanking God signals humility and a sense that time is a gift rather than an entitlement. Spoken in the shadow of terminal illness, it becomes an ethic of attention—choosing gratitude over bitterness and presence over fear. The line also functions as a moral exhortation to listeners: regardless of circumstances, one can reclaim agency by deciding how to meet the day, honoring ordinary time as something worthy of thanks.