BATON ROUGE — LSU baseball players Clay Dirks and Jordan Faircloth, along with volleyball player Melody Clark, spoke to students at Greenville Elementary on Thursday morning as part of the Shaquille O’Neal CHAMPS/Life Skills program.
This was 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 Tigers, Dirks was named a 2004 Freshman All-American by Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball. A native of Hernando, Miss., he led the LSU starting rotation with a 3.43 ERA and he ranked second in strikeouts with 66.
Faircloth, a senior pitcher for the Tigers, threw 56.1 innings last season with four saves. The solid relief pitcher from Alexandria, La., also posted a 2.40 ERA and 40 strikeouts.
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 with 1.93 kills per game and third with 0.72 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 on 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.