BATON ROUGE — LSU baseball player Clay Dirks and volleyball player Melody Clark will speak to students at Greenville Elementary on Thursday morning as part of the Shaquille O’Neal CHAMPS/Life Skills program.
The pair will speak to approximately 500 students at the elementary school at 8:15 a.m. and should for about 30-40 minutes. This is the second year that LSU student-athletes have spoken to students at Greenville Elementary, as men’s basketball player Paul Wolfert spoke to the school last year.
A sophomore pitcher for the baseball team, was one of three pitchers named to the Southeastern Conference All-Freshman Team in 2004. A native of Hernando, Miss., he led the LSU staff with a 3.43 ERA and he ranked second in strikeouts with 66.
A Colorado Springs, Colo., native, Clark is a right side hitter for the volleyball team. The sophomore has played in every match this season and ranks fifth on the team in kills per game and third in blocks per game.
Both Clark and Dirks are members of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council. The council serves as the governing body for the LSU student-athletes. Council members sponsor many community service events including the Halloween BOOzar and the Christmas Toy Drive.
SAAC members also serve as liaison between student-athletes and athletic & academic support staff playing an essential role in creating regulations and keeping their teammates informed any changes with respect to the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student Athletes.
The CHAMPS (Challenging Athletes Minds for Personal Success)/Life Skills Program was designed by the NCAA to help student-athletes realize higher academic achievement, increase likelihood of graduation and enter a chosen profession with a higher level of vision, knowledge, motivation, self-responsibility and greater overall success. In Spring 2003, the CHAMPS/ Life Skills Program honored one of LSU’s most memorable graduates, Shaquille O’Neal, by naming the program after him.