BATON ROUGE — Members of the LSU track and field 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.
Eleven members of the track and field team mad the visit to the hospital. They spoke with the children and handed out posters, temporary tattoos, stickers and toys.
Members of the team that made the trip included Kate Accardo, Angel Boyd, Katie Dawson, Lindsay Day, Meisue Francis, Britney Harris, Tina Harris, Tanya Osbourne, Isa Phillips, Jennifer Radecker and Jacob Simmons.
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.