BATON ROUGE – LSU men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson, along with players senior Storm Warren and sophomores Andre Stringer and Ralston Turner spent time today visiting with students of the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired.
The LSU party was greeted by a familiar name and face to many long-time LSU basketball fans – Warren Mickey Heard – who played for Coach Dale Brown in the mid-1970s. Heard has been a coach at LSVI for 15 years.
“It’s an honor to be here,” said Coach Johnson. “It is interesting that in the sport of basketball, a lot of it goes by feel and rhythm. We have drills in practice where the players are put in certain situations where they have to dribble the ball without looking at the ball. That’s a certain skill they have to learn. I think from our standpoint, sometimes we don’t realize how blessed, how fortunate we are. We are really privileged to be here with you wonderful young men and young ladies.”
The coach and players were then shown by the students themselves what some of the daily routines of their life involve, including the use of the white cane as all four were given dark glasses and attempted to use a cane to find their way around the gymnasium. The players were amazed by a young girl at a table in the room who could quickly type their name in Braille once the players told them their name.
The players and Coach Johnson all signed basketballs to give to every student that attended the visit and gave several to some of the faculty and staff on hand as well.