BATON ROUGE — LSU’s CHAMPS/Life Skills program hosted a Major Decisions Symposium for freshmen and sophomore student-athletes Monday evening at the Bo Campbell Auditorium.
The event opened with a message from keynote speaker Rod West, President & CEO of Entergy New Orleans, Inc. He touched upon making the right decisions in college to set yourself up for a career after college athletics.
West is the past chairman and a current member of the LSU System Board of Supervisors. He also serves on the board of the Allstate Sugar Bowl, First Bank and Trust and is a commissioner of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad and Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
West lettered three years as an outside linebacker and tight end for Lou Holtz at Notre Dame. He was a member of the 1988 National Championship team.
“I wanted to stress to our student athletes the importance of setting academic goals early,” West said. “Like the NCAA commercial states, ‘The majority of our students go pro in something other than sports.’ Our students can’t afford to wait until their athletic careers are over to decide what they want to achieve academically. They can compete in both the classroom and on the field, they simply have to make the decision to put in the work.”
Representatives from each individual college and school at LSU also were on-hand along with Career Services and the Honor College. The student-athletes visited tables and interacted with the representatives to help make their choice on deciding a major.