Introduction
People have been influencing other people for hundreds of years. Whether consciously or subconsciously, people use their words and actions to impact people. This method is known as impression management and it has been used by people in all different walks of life. One group in particular that makes great use of this method are coaches. A coach uses impression management to influence his or her players to act a certain way and to respect and mirror their coach. One coach who perfectly embodies this method is Jim Valvano, a college basketball coach plagued with cancer who constantly used his life to inspire other people.
Impression Management Impression management is typically described as the way people influence other people,…show more content… By the time Jim was 17 years old, he already knew what his professional aspirations were. He wrote down everything he wanted to achieve on a single index card. Among his goals were to play high school and college basketball, become an assistant then head coach, and cut down the nets after winning the National Championship. By the time he was 36, Jim could revisit this index card and cross off every single dream he had written down years before. Jim believed in living every day to its fullest and was once quoted saying “There are 86,400 seconds in a day. It’s up to you to decide what to do with them”(). JIm was known to truly live life to its…show more content… During this time, Valvano gave hundreds of motivational speeches across the country. He was very well known for inspiring his players with his enthusiasm and passion for the sport and life, and he continued to inspire people after his coaching career by bringing that enthusiasm to people across the country. One of his famous speeches was at North Carolina State University for their ten-year commemoration of the university’s NCAA Championship. In this speech Valvano stressed the importance of persistence and hope, giving the famous quote “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up”(). This speech was largely inspired by his diagnosis of metastatic adenocarcinoma, a type of bone cancer, in June of 1992. Not only did Valvano have the inspiration that he always carried through life to guide his speeches, now he also had a very different reason to