BATON ROUGE — Members of the LSU baseball team visited the children’s ward at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center on Tuesday as part of the Shaquille O’Neal CHAMPS/Life Skills program.
Seniors Chase Dardar and Gerard Victoriano and sophomore Will Goodwin made visits to the children in the hospital. The players spoke with the children and autographed posters.
Dardar and Victoriano both transferred to LSU from Delgado CC in New Orleans. Dardar is a pitcher from Marrero and has made 10 appearances with a 10-1 record and 1.98 ERA, while Victoriano is a catcher from Lafitte and has seen action in five games this season. Goodwin is pitcher from Houston with one appearance this year, helping to combine for a shutout in that one appearance.
The hospital visits are sponsored by the Shaquille O’Neal CHAMPS/Life Skills program. 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 at LSU honored one of the Tigers’ most memorable graduates, Shaquille O’Neal, by naming the program after him.