Bear Bryant, who was one of my many mentors, always told his players to “have a plan,” be it in football or in the much bigger game we call life, and he carefully instructed each of them to “have a rock ‘to tie to’” in the case hard times came along.

Allow me a moment to tell you about my latest “rock.” His name is Randy Pausch and for over the past two weeks, unbeknownst to him, he has been my strength as I have been hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. During my stay I have undergone five different surgeries as a team of doctors has worked to rid my arm of a drug-resistant “staph” infection.

I neither wanted nor do I feel I deserved this latest battle with bacteria, but, as Randy says so very succinctly, “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

So, as you read this, I am still in the hospital. The powerful antibiotics are now beginning to kick in and, while I have another surgery scheduled for today, it is important that you recognize the setting of my plea as I urge you to gather together all those who you hold close and dear to watch a TV special on CBS tonight.

I have no idea what Diane Sawyer will say on her show, “Primetime,” but what matters is that you will hear what Randy Pausch has to say because his “Last Lecture” may be the most wonderful, most moving, most inspirational talk I have ever heard.

Luckily for me, I came across an Internet tape of the talk about two months ago. Since then I have watched it a bunch of times and, according to Tuesday’s New York Times, so have over 10 million others on the YouTube.com website.

Not only that, USA Today made it the main story of its “Life” section Tuesday as a wonderful book, so beautifully written by the Wall Street Journal’s Jeffery Zaslow, flooded the nation’s bookstores.

Trust me, the whole thing is phenomenal, that an obscure college professor who is on the verge of dying with pancreatic cancer would touch an entire nation – and soon the whole world - with a dazzling talk about living, about having fun every moment you are still alive.

In the space of an hour, he lectures us on “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” and, lest you think you might blanch at a computer-engineering nerd on the verge of his own death, please know this talk is instead one of the most joyful celebrations of a man’s life ever recorded by mankind. I mean it.

There are some who won’t be able to see tonight’s “Primetime” program, but they can go to www.thelastlecture.com or Carnegie-Mellon.edu, and download the talk. You can also read it in the book form, of which the proceeds will go towards the fight against pancreatic cancer.

Understand, the lecture wasn’t given until September and already Randy Pausch’s life is in “extra innings.” But he warns his audience, “If I am not as depressed as you think I should be, I am sorry to disappoint you.”

Instead he tells us, “Brick walls are there for a reason. They are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop people who don’t want it badly enough.”

One more. He also said, “It isn’t about achieving your dreams but living your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.”

As I read yesterday’s newspapers, I thought a long time about Randy Pausch. I’ll get out of the hospital in the next day or two and, when the Vancomycin kayo’s the “staph,” I’ll be wild and wooly once more. The next time Randy goes to the hospital, it will be for keeps and that day is coming real soon.

So rather than lie around in a drug-induced fog battling the bacteria, the pain and the nausea, I instead devoted last night to writing a story in hopes that Randy Pausch’s message will settle on others the way it has on me and that, well …. it will become a “rock” for many thousands of others from now on.

Trust me, this is big medicine and, brother, not only is that what I need real badly right now, I can vow Dr. Pausch’s mindset is already working like magic for me.

royexum@aol.com