BATON ROUGE — Members of the fourth-ranked LSU softball team visited the children’s ward at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center on Thursday afternoon as part of the Shaquille O’Neal CHAMPS/Life Skills program.
Junior shortstop Andrea Smith and junior second baseman Shannon Stein spoke with children and signed autographs throughout the children’s ward. The players helped to cheer the children up while they are in the hospital
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.