Shaq Uncut: My Story

by Shaquille O’Neal

  For my role in everything, I was “detained” by the police. Anthony and I had to shake hands. Everyone was trying to downplay the football versus basketball thing, but it was real. There was a lot of tension between the two teams.

  So Dale said to me, “You need to get your own place off campus.” The next semester I moved in with Dennis Tracey, whose claim to fame was that he was an LSU walk-on. One day Dale was having trouble finding someone to shut down Charles Smith from Georgetown, so he put Dennis in the game. Dennis did a great job on Charles Smith, and Dale ending up giving him a scholarship.

  Dennis was a smart guy. He was older than me, and we became good friends. He also became my personal manager for a while. We lived together in this little house with a pool in the backyard. Dennis had a pair of boxing gloves, so we started boxing—with one glove each. Those were really fun days.

  During the 1990–91 season I was the first player to lead the SEC in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage, and blocks. In December of that season, we beat Arkansas State and I scored 53 points—including, by the way, 17 of 21 from the free-throw line.

  We also beat Kentucky and Arizona, which was the number two team in the country at the time. I was finally on the national radar. Vernel was our second option, and our guard Mike Hansen also averaged in double figures, but we all knew who was getting the ball when the game was on the line.

  Coach Brown was on me to make sure I didn’t blow it. I was never late for practice, but once in a while I missed a class. One morning I’m sound asleep in my room and there’s this loud knock on my door. It’s four thirty in the morning. I get out of bed and there’s Coach Brown standing there. He said to me, “Did you miss class yesterday?”

  I’m half asleep but I say, “Yes sir.”

  He says, “Well, then, c’mon, son. Put your shoes on. We’re going for a run.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “Right now, Coach?”

  “Right now, Shaquille,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  After that, I didn’t miss too many more classes.

  By the end of my sophomore season we had tied for the SEC regular season championship, and we had one game left before the tournament.

  I injured my leg and it was really killing me. All we had to do was beat Mississippi State and we’d win the SEC outright, so Coach Brown says, “What do you think?” I told him I could play, but the truth was there was really something wrong with my leg.

  Dale decided to sit me out. “Shaq, I don’t want you to risk it,” he said.

  We lost to Mississippi State and everyone was furious. Coach also sat me out against Auburn in the SEC tournament, and we lost that game, too.

  Coach Brown and the trainer, Doc Broussard, really got into it. The trainer thought Dale was trying to be a doctor. But Coach Brown told him, “I’m not. I’m just trying to protect his career. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to Shaquille that stopped him from going to the next level.”

  Doc Broussard was from the old school, worse than my father. I remember once Wayne Sims got popped in the face, and his lip was split open and he was bleeding all over the place and he needed stitches, but Doc said, “You’re all right, you sissy. Get back in the game.”

  He was hard-core, a mean bastard. I kept telling him, “Every time I put pressure on my foot, it really hurts.” In fact, I had an MRI afterward and they said it was a hairline fracture.

  When Coach Brown told him I wasn’t playing against Mississippi State, Broussard said, “This is the first time since Pistol Pete Maravich we can win the SEC championship and this wimp won’t go. He’s just saving himself to go pro.”

  Dale said, “No, he wouldn’t do that.”

  While they’re arguing our team is on the court warming up. I’m not out there, so the Mississippi State fans started chanting, “Where’s your big-lipped African? Where’s your big-lipped African?”

  Coach Brown went crazy when he heard it. Mississippi State’s fans had done this before. The previous year someone wrote an article on Chris Jackson and how he never knew his father, so when our team ran out for warm-ups, they started chanting, “Where’s your dad? Who’s your dad?”

  Dale went to the PA announcer and ordered them to stop. The game hadn’t even started and already everyone was all riled up. Coach Brown got on his radio show that night and blasted Mississippi State, their coach, their fans, their president. That’s why we loved Coach. He always had our backs.

  I was still injured when the NCAA tournament started, but I gave it my best shot. I had 27 points and 16 rebounds, but we lost to UConn. Mike Hansen had gotten mononucleosis, so he wasn’t himself, either.

  Doc Broussard was wrong about me. I didn’t declare for the NBA draft that spring. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t even started taking my business classes yet. I knew how to balance a checkbook, but that was about it. I needed to learn about making a living in case this basketball thing didn’t work out. I needed an education.

  Coach Brown had already started talking to me about playing professionally. He could see I was going to be dominant and eventually go to the NBA, so he started exposing me to all sorts of different people. I remember one morning I was asleep in my dorm room and I heard some noise and I woke up and I was kind of fuzzy, but I see this old guy talking to me, and it’s John Wooden. He was friends with Dale Brown, and he came to talk to me about teamwork and the pride of playing for one’s school. I think what he was really trying to do was to convince me to stay in college for all four years. I certainly respected Coach Wooden and everything he stood for, but I still had to do what I had to do.

  Another time Dale brought in Kareem to teach me a sky hook. He brought in Bill Walton, who later told reporters I reminded him of Charles Barkley because of my “raw power.” My father heard about these visits and wanted to know why Dale was encouraging me to shoot a hook shot.

  “He’s a power player,” my dad told my coach. “I want him to dunk.”

  Dale got me on the phone with Julius Erving, my childhood idol. He brought Olympic sprinter Carl Lewis in. Coach Brown loved Carl Lewis. Carl told us, “You know, growing up we’ve all got dreams and we all want to be All-Americans, but wanting that and willing that to happen are two completely different things.”

  I was an All-American after my sophomore year. The Associated Press and UPI named me National Player of the Year, but I didn’t win the Wooden Award or the Naismith Award. Larry Johnson of Nevada–Las Vegas won both of those, so he was on my hit list.

  When I started my junior season in 1991, I had an idea it would be my final year of college. I averaged 21 points and 14 rebounds a game, which was second in the nation. I led the country with 5.3 blocks, but again someone else won the Naismith and the Wooden ahead of me. This time it was Duke center Christian Laettner.

  The first time I played against Laettner, in February 1991 in Durham, North Carolina, he completely destroyed me. He embarrassed me. He back-doored me to death and walked off with 24 points and 11 boards. I had never heard of him. I remember asking, “Who the hell is this guy?” He fundamentally undressed me, so after that, I was keeping an eye on him.

  Coach got us a rematch the next season, my final year at LSU, and a week before the game I strained my calf muscle. I was really sore, but I had to play because people were talking about Laettner and Georgetown center Alonzo Mourning with a little more breath than they were about me, and I couldn’t have that. I just had to be the No. 1 pick.

  I taped up my calf and I took it to Laettner. Hard. I dropped 25 and 12 on him and I blocked 7 shots, but they came from behind and won. I’ll never forget Laettner’s face when I was dunking on him. He looked terrified. I was talking all sorts of trash to him, too.

  Years later I played with him in Miami and discovered he was a really nice guy. I didn’t know. Back in college, I hated everyone from Duke. I knew people who went to Duke had to be smart. I knew I wasn’t that smart. Growing up where I did, I never learned all those words they put on those entrance exa
ms.

  I broke the LSU school record for blocked shots in my final season, and they presented me with the ball before one of our games. My parents always sat in the same place, right behind the student section, so I turned to my father, pointed to him, and threw him the ball.

  The reason I did that was because whenever I was a kid and won a trophy, he’d let me take it home and admire it. I’d get up the next morning and go to school, and the trophy would be gone by the time I got home. When I asked him where it was, he’d tell me, “That’s over. History. Go win another one.”

  The commemorative ball was my latest trophy, so I threw it to him to let him know I remembered.

  Some student jumped up in front of my dad and snagged the ball. You should have seen Sarge’s face. The kid was smart enough to hand it over to him.

  All of our games were sold out in ’91–’92. Students were camping outside the gym the night before to get tickets. I was signing autographs all over the state of Louisiana. A family in Baton Rouge named their newborn son after me, so I showed up at their house, unannounced, to take some pictures.

  The people at LSU get this great idea to print up these T-shirts with a drawing of me doing my signature dunk where I’m hanging on the rim with my legs kicked up like Rony Seikaly.

  They printed up a whole bunch of these T-shirts and were going to sell them during one of our games. I don’t really know anything about it, but when Sarge walks into the arena and sees those T-shirts, he loses it.

  One thing about my father is he’s not going to let anyone take advantage of our family.

  We were in our locker room, and Coach Brown was delivering his pregame speech when boom! The door flies open, and here comes Sarge. He’s eyes are popping out of his head, he’s so pissed off. He’s got one of the T-shirts in his hands and he’s shouting, “What the fuck is this about? What makes you think this is all right?”

  He told Dale, “We could be taking money. We’ve been offered plenty of stuff through the years, but we haven’t done it that way. We’ve done it the right way. And now you’re going to make money off my son? I got a big problem with that.”

  Everyone is quiet. No one is saying a thing. I’m more than a little embarrassed. Everyone knows your parents aren’t allowed in the locker room before the game. But Sarge has got a point.

  Next thing I know, he’s telling Coach Brown that unless the T-shirts are taken down and put away, I wasn’t going to play in the game. Now I’ve got my head down. I want to disappear.

  But Coach Brown is really good. He’s used to dealing with Sarge. He gets him calmed down. The T-shirts disappear. I play in the game. We avoid a major meltdown.

  Bo spends a good part of my final season driving to the mall and handing out “cease and desist” orders to stores who were making and marketing their own Shaq Attack T-shirts.

  By then teams were having trouble stopping me, so they were fouling me on purpose. Sometimes, the fouls crossed the line from a “hard” foul to downright dirty. Coach Brown told me, “Don’t take all that abuse. If they try to hurt you, I’m giving you permission to hit them back.”

  We played Tennessee in the first round of the SEC tournament that spring. We were up by 22 points, and I was dominating this guy named Carlus Groves. I got the ball in the post, and he grabbed me and jerked me backward and tried to haul me down. I was so mad I wanted to break his jaw. I went to push him off my back and all hell broke loose.

  Next thing I know Coach Brown is out there going right for Groves. When I saw him I thought, Wow, he’s sticking up for me. After the game he called the NCAA and told them, “Hey, if you don’t want these guys to get hurt you better do something, because I’m going to tell Shaquille to play with his elbows up from now on. He’s getting killed out there, and you are always blaming him.”

  Of course, meanwhile he’s telling me to keep my composure and don’t let these other players goad me into doing something stupid.

  The refs threw me, Groves, and nine other players out of the game. Not only that, but I was suspended from playing in our semifinal game against Kentucky. I was hot. Some guy purposely tries to hurt me, and I have to pay the price? Tennessee’s SEC season was over because we beat them. So what penalty did they get?

  Coach Brown was so mad about the suspension he was going to sit out the game and pull our team in protest. I told him I appreciated it, but I thought he should be out there. He really wrestled with it, but in the end he did coach the game. We lost to Kentucky 80–74.

  My final season at LSU ended with a loss to Indiana in the second round of the NCAA tournament. They were a higher seed than us, but it didn’t stop people from wondering why LSU didn’t go further in the tournament with Shaquille O’Neal.

  All I can tell you is, in my final college game I had 36 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 blocks. I was also a perfect 12 of 12 from the free-throw line, so what else could I do?

  Indiana was the kind of slow-down, motion offense team that always bothered us. They kind of lulled us to sleep. We liked that fast-paced up-and-down style.

  Right after we lost, in March 1992, I left campus. I did it quietly, without saying much at all.

  There were three months to go before the draft. Three months to get into trouble. Everybody knew I was going pro. It was the worst secret out there. But I’ve always been what I call Spooky Wook about these kind of things. Kind of superstitious—afraid of what could go wrong.

  So, the best thing I could do was leave campus. It kept me away from girls, partying, drinking, weed. I had been successful in staying away from most of that stuff. Why chance it now? I also knew if I was around Sarge and my mother I wouldn’t even be tempted, so I went home.

  I remember taking one last look at the LSU campus when I pulled out of there in my cranky old Ford Bronco II. I was a little sad, a little nostalgic.

  But then I closed my eyes and started dreaming about which car I’d be driving the next time I came on campus. When I opened them up again, I was smiling.

  It was time to go.

  MAY 17, 1992

  NBA Draft Lottery

  Secaucus, New Jersey

  Orlando Magic president Pat Williams stuffed the plastic bag with the Shaquille O’Neal jersey under his seat. He wasn’t alone. All eleven men representing their franchises in the NBA draft lottery had printed up a team jersey with Shaq’s name embossed in big letters above their respective logos. There was a Dallas Shaq jersey, a Milwaukee Shaq jersey, a Washington Shaq jersey.

  With ten of the sixty-six Ping-Pong balls in the mix bearing Orlando’s name, the Magic had just over a 15 percent chance of landing the big fella.

  One by one, the draft order was revealed. The Houston Rockets were stuck with No. 11 and a Shaq jersey that was instantly rendered useless. The Atlanta Hawks suffered a similar fate when their logo popped up at No. 10. As the Shaq sweepstakes dwindled to five, Mavericks owner Donald Carter caressed his lucky coyote tooth, but it yielded him only the fourth overall pick.

  Finally, there were three teams left standing—Charlotte, Minnesota, and Orlando.

  When the card for the No. 3 pick was turned over to reveal the Minnesota Timberwolves, Shaquille O’Neal squealed with delight. He was watching the proceedings from the Brentwood, California, home of his agent, Leonard Armato, and while he had no specific preference, his only wish was to play in a warm weather city.

  “Excellent,” Armato said, once Minnesota was eliminated. “Now we don’t have to pull a power play to get you out of there.”

  “Charlotte and Orlando? I can live with either one of those,” Shaq agreed.

  When Orlando’s number came up as No. 1, Pat Williams’s heart skipped two beats. He reached under the table for his Shaq jersey and skipped up to the stage, mindful of the warning David Stern had issued before the draft lottery began.

  “Gentle hugs,” Stern demanded. Two years earlier, he’d received a crushing squeeze to the ribs from towering New Jersey Nets executive Willis Reed when he landed the rights
to draft Derrick Coleman.

  Shaq leaned back on Armato’s couch. He shook his agent’s hand, then embraced Dennis Tracey, his LSU teammate and new manager.

  “Orlando,” Tracey said. “Home of Disney World.”

  “Look out, Mickey Mouse,” Shaq said, grinning. “I’m coming for you.”

  A COUPLE OF WEEKS BEFORE THE DRAFT LOTTERY I GOT TO meet Mr. David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA. His question to me was, “Where do you want to play?” Now I don’t want to create no conspiracy theory, but I told him, “Definitely where it’s hot.”

  Orlando was hot, and so was I.

  I was excited about the NBA—and all the money that was coming with it—but I was also still thinking about LSU. I was kind of scared to tell Dale Brown I was leaving. One night I called him about eleven thirty. He said, “I already know what you’re calling about. You are right, you’ve got to go. They’re hammering you so hard out there in the college game you should leave before you get hurt and can’t play anymore.”

  I was so relieved. I really didn’t want to let Coach Brown down. The last thing he said was “Please be safe. Drive slowly. Go home and think about it. If you want me to come out there to Texas when you make your announcement, let me know and I will.”

  Because I left campus without telling anyone, I didn’t follow the “proper procedures” of withdrawal from LSU. As a result, my pal Bo Bahnsen confiscated my deposit. All these years later, the first thing I say when I see him is, “Yo, Bo. Where’s my fifty dollars?”

  Once I got home to San Antonio, we started talking with agents. Coach Brown was the one who introduced me to Leonard Armato. Just before I left campus this guy—I forget his name—came up to me, slipped me his card, and said, “If you sign with me, I’ll get you whatever you want. Let’s start with $250,000.” He was from Southern California and he scared the crap out of me.