{"id":8759,"date":"2025-10-17T18:19:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/8759\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T18:19:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:19:32","slug":"chap-basketball-adds-key-piece-with-thomas-rodriguez-signing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/8759\/","title":{"rendered":"Chap Basketball Adds Key Piece With Thomas Rodriguez Signing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                    &#13;<br \/>\n                        Story Links&#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                     LUBBOCK, Texas (October 17, 2025) &#8211; The Lubbock Christian University men&#8217;s basketball team added a key piece to the program on Friday afternoon, signing Team IMPACT&#8217;s Thomas Rodriguez.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n&#8220;It&#8217;s been so great having him at practice,&#8221; LCU Head Coach <a href=\"https:\/\/lcuchaps.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/coaches\/todd-duncan\/521\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"521\" target=\"_blank\">Todd Duncan<\/a> said. &#8220;He&#8217;s a big encouragement to our team and an inspiration. His life&#8217;s not easy, but he&#8217;s working hard, he&#8217;s getting better, and he&#8217;s even getting better at basketball when he&#8217;s around our team.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSince it was established in 2011, Team IMPACT has matched children facing serious illness and disability with college sports teams, creating a long-term, life-changing experience for everyone involved.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"24_MBB_Thomas\" class=\"sidearm-story-image-align-right\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/251A9493.JPG\" style=\"display:inline-block; padding-left:10px; float:right\" width=\"450\"\/>Thomas was around the Chaps for much of the 2024-25 season, getting to know the coaches and players before officially making his commitment to the program on Friday.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nDuncan expressed his excitement with the signing, as did Chaparrals <a href=\"https:\/\/lcuchaps.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/alex-anamekwe\/4433\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"4433\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Anamekwe<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lcuchaps.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/kendall-dow\/4358\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"4358\" target=\"_blank\">Kendall Dow<\/a>. After signing his letter of intent, Thomas was presented with several gifts from the team, including his very own No. 2 jersey.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n&#8220;Seeing Thomas every day is a true inspiration,&#8221; Anamekwe said. &#8220;Signing him onto our team is not just gaining a teammate, it&#8217;s gaining a brother. We all go through our challenges and Thomas is just that prime example of overcoming.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Story Links&#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; LUBBOCK, Texas (October 17, 2025) &#8211; The Lubbock Christian University men&#8217;s basketball&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-8759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}