BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team, after completing their preparation for Saturday’s 3 p.m. game with Louisiana Tech, spent time offering holiday cheer to youngsters at a Baton Rouge hospital.
The team made a Christmas week visit Friday to the children’s hospital at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital and entertained patients in each room with Christmas carols, attempting a different carol in each room. Players signed autographs and gave out posters around the hospital and tried to give folks some smiles to brighten up their holiday.
These events are set up through 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.