BATON ROUGE — LSU baseball players Clay Dirks and Jordan Faircloth will speak to fifth grade students at Buchanan Elementary on Tuesday morning as part of the Shaquille O’Neal CHAMPS/Life Skills program.
The Tiger baseball players will speak to the physical education class from 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. about the importance of teamwork and cooperation in athletics as well as life.
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.
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.