Randy Pausch, 'Last Lecture' Professor Dies

After battling breast cancer, Kaje Lane of Los Angeles says Pausch has inspired her to pursue singing -- a passion she had put aside for many years.

"I think so many people relate to Randy because every one of us has some sort of dream they want to make real, or some sort of passion that they want to tap into if they're not already thinking that way. … I think people are just drawn to that. It's very magnetic to see someone positive not just about the big things but the little things."

'Leave It All on the Field'

Even though he had enabled the dreams of so many others, we couldn't help but notice that there was one dream Pausch had never been able to fulfill -- playing in the NFL.

So ABC News made a couple of phone calls, and in October, Pausch took the field with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was wearing the jersey of his favorite player: wide receiver Heinz Ward.

Moments later he was catching balls thrown by Ward.

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He caught every pass -- and even kicked a field goal, on his first attempt.

"There was a definite sense," Pausch told Sawyer, "when I put that talk together, to use another football expression, you know, I wanted to leave it all on the field. … If I thought it was important, it's in there. I played in football games where you walk off the field and the scoreboard didn't end up the way you wanted. But you knew that you really did give it all. And the other team was too strong. Yeah, I'm not going to beat the cancer. I tried really hard … but sometimes you're just not going to beat the thing…I wanted to walk off the stage and say anything I thought was important, I had my hour."

After a bout earlier this year in the hospital to overcome kidney and congestive heart failure -- side effects of his chemotherapy -- Pausch returned home to his family.

"His fate is, is our fate, but it's just sped up," said co-author Jeff Zaslow. "He's, you know, 47, and, and we don't know when we're gonna go, but we all have the same fate. We're all dying, just like Randy is … when we can see him, how he's, how he's traveling, it makes us think about how we're going to travel."

Millions of people around the globe have been touched by his message of optimism.

Last spring, Sawyer asked Pausch what was the best thing that had happened to him that day. He replied, "Well, first off, I'd say the day's not over yet. So there's always a chance that there will be a new best."

Lasting Legacy

Carnegie Mellon University will honor Pausch's commitment to collaboration by building the Randy Pausch Memorial Footbridge to connect a computer science center under construction with a nearby arts building.

Announcing the project last September, Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon said, "Randy, there will be generations of students and faculty who will not know you, but they will cross that bridge and see your name and they'll ask those of us who did know you. And we will tell them."

In a statement released by the university today, Cohon expressed the community's sadness at Pausch's passing.

"Randy had an enormous and lasting impact on Carnegie Mellon," Cohon said . "He was a brilliant researcher and gifted teacher. His love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance came together in the Alice project, which teaches students computer programming while enabling them to do something fun -- making animated movies and games. Carnegie Mellon -- and the world -- are better places for having had Randy Pausch in them."

The family requests that donations on Randy's behalf be directed to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, 2141 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 7000, El Segundo, CA 90245, or to Carnegie Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund.