A professor at Carnegie Mellon, Randy Pausch gave the August 2007 speech in “The Last Lecture Series,” an annual tradition at the university in which a professor delivers a speech as though it were the last lecture he would ever give. In Pausch’s case, he delivered the speech one month after learning that efforts to cure his pancreatic cancer had failed and the doctors projected he had 3-6 months of good health left. Although he gave the speech in front of 400 friends and relatives, he wrote and gave the speech for his three young children. The speech reflects Pausch’s beliefs on living life and has become wildly popular as a motivational guide.
Nate Beasley won the State Championship in oratorical declamation based on an edited version of Pausch’s now famous speech. Coach Scott McDermott had learned of the speech on the Internet and selected Beasley to base his speech on “The Last Lecture.” Beasley had to take a 90-minute speech and distill it down to eight minutes of the messages that Beasley found most important to him. Beasley got it down to ten minutes and Coach McDermott helped trim it to 8 minutes, the maximum time in state competition. The impact of the speech has become a phenomenon and apparently will be the theme of the Diane Sawyer special. Beasley’s state championship and how it affected Beasley is an example of the impactfulness of the speech on young people. In addition, another speech student, Billy Sterrett from Naperville Central High School, was also interviewed for the special.
