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We went to college at the same time —the ragin', Reagan '80s — and I can remember thinking that Jeff Apodaca was one of those guys who'd never change.

Thankfully, I was right.

The incoming-call feature on his cell phone is butting in throughout our conversation; his buds are telling him to hurry because their tee time is approaching; his already packed vacation schedule in New Mexico has spilled over the brim and onto a saucer of "Let's see if I can work that in."

So, it surprises me not a whit that before I can ask him if he remembers the moment he got word he had cancer nearly 27 years ago, he beats me to the punch.

"I celebrate the day they told me," he says. "October 18."

Chin out. Back straight. Shoulders square. If surviving cancer in New Mexico can have a human reference point, a Rocky Balboa, it's Jeff Apodaca — now 45 and just as aggressive and positive and go-go-go as ever.

He says he celebrates the day his disease was diagnosed because it "changed his life for the better." He knows that makes little sense to some and quickly points to all the things that happened after he learned the terrible news that he had a rare and malignant tumor.

First of all, he survived after two years of spirit- and body-sapping treatment in 1979, '80 and '81. Finally fit again, he played college football — first at Southern Methodist University and later at the University of New Mexico. With the Lobos, he was that undersized tough-as-a-barnacle defender who'd never make an all-conference team but would always drive his opponents stark, raving nuts.

After graduation, Apodaca worked in TV, first in Albuquerque with KOB-Channel 4, and later with CBS in New York and Los Angeles. From there, it was on to Excite at the height of the online boom.

Now a vice president with Univision in Los Angeles, where he runs the Spanish-language network's integrated sales and marketing department for its TV and online businesses, Apodaca is entirely in the moment — cell phone chirping, eager to connect, always on-on-on.

But he says he's never forgotten those days when he was just a kid from Santa Fe suddenly facing cancer — angry, negative, uncertain about what his future would he. Or, more to the point, if he would have a future.

With that touchstone always near, Apodaca 10 years years ago began the Jeff Apodaca Celebration of Life Foundation, aimed at helping young cancer patients at University of New Mexico Children's Hospital.

When it started, Apodaca figured he could come back, throw a party through his New Mexico connections, raise $20,000 or $30,000, call it a good effort. But in the first year, he raised several times that amount, and the fund-raiser became an annual force for good.

Last week, Apodaca and his foundation opened a new multimedia center at the Children's Hospital, a room packed with big-screen TVs and computers and gadgets that help lighten the load from the grinding monotony that is cancer treatment.

"There are moments when you feel very lonely, like you're the only one going through it," he says. "And there are times when you feel like no one understands."

Apodaca, the son of a former governor, never forgot. And as he strides though the media center and talks to cancer patients — hell, as he strides through life — he makes sure to note that everyone has an Oct. 18 in them.

A chance to take something terrible and make it terrific.

"I just want to be able to say, 'Guys, every day is a struggle, but the next day is better. The next day's your future. You're the future. Let's get through this day, and the next day and the next.'

"Hopefully," he adds, "that will encourage them to get through, to get an education, to prosper in the business world. And then I tell them, that when they do get better and do get successful, you come back and help. Help other people. That's what it's all about."