“If you have someone with a dream, if you have a motivated person with a goal and a vision, if you have someone that never gives up, who has great hope, anything can happen.” -Jimmy Valvano (1946-1993)

Ray Romano will star in a new film about the extraordinary life of college basketball coach, broadcaster and Queens native Jimmy Valvano, Deadline reports.

Valvano’s life represents one of the great American underdog stories. It all started with “Jimmy V’s” unprecedented coaching ascent, including his astonishing run to the 1983 NCAA Championship with the North Carolina State Wolfpack.

The team won a last-second victory over the heavily favored Houston Cougars team that had future NBA stars Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler on its roster.

Watch the buzzer-beating finish here:

 

Not even a terminal cancer diagnosis could undermine Valvano’s never-quit philosophy.

His 1993 Espy Awards speech was perhaps his greatest achievement; it inspired a movement to fight cancer and it led to the creation of the V Foundation, which has raised more than $300 million to fight the disease.

The film will serve as a comeback project of sorts for Romano, an Italian American actor and comic from Queens New York, who was a fixture for years on TV airwaves with the hit sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

A release date has not yet been set for the film.

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