Shaq Uncut: My Story (11 page)

Well, sure. Most of the time.

I knew the big money was coming, so I told my father, “Get out of the army. Come with me.” At that point both of my parents were
lucky to be making $30,000 a year. I hired them both to run my fan club at $100,000 each. I said to them, “This is my gift to you.”

I bought them a house in Orlando. I did
what any son would do when he finally made it big and he wanted to thank his parents for their love and their support.

Lester worries about me sometimes, I know that. He says there is such a thing as being too generous. My feeling on that is you can’t take it with you. My parents don’t ask for much. I want them to be happy, to enjoy this time of their life. Same for my brother and sisters. My
family is everything to me. Now that doesn’t mean if some distant cousin from Georgia who claims we’ve got the same hairline shows up that he’s getting put on my payroll. I’m not
that
stupid.

As the actual draft day approached, the people in Orlando were getting nervous because I hadn’t said anything about their team, their city, or their players. It was a big moment for them and my silence was
kind of spoiling it, I guess.

It didn’t help there were rumors floating around that Leonard was going to try to pull off a trade to send me to the Lakers, which wasn’t true at all, even though Leonard would have loved that.

Here is the reason I didn’t say much. I’m very superstitious, and I wasn’t going to talk about being the No. 1 pick until I actually was drafted as the No. 1 pick.

The Magic
kept pestering us to meet with them, so finally, a couple of days before the draft, my father, my brother, Jamal, and I flew in to Orlando.

They gave me a tour, and I met with the team officials, and then they ended up having a nice dinner with the owners, the coaches, and some front-office people.

It was fine, but it had been a long day and Jamal, who was only thirteen, was bored. He started
messing around a little bit at dinner. He’s talking smack to me, he’s drinking my water, and the next thing you know we’re flicking rolls at each other. My future coach, Matt Goukas, was horrified. To be honest, I was having so much fun with
Jamal I didn’t notice. When Pat Williams asked Matt Goukas later what he thought of his No. 1 pick and his brother, he said, “I wanted to send both of them
to their rooms.”

On draft night, Orlando jammed ten thousand people into their arena for their live announcement that they’d be selecting Shaquille O’Neal as No. 1. They had a platform and Pat Williams was going to make the call to the NBA in front of all these screaming fans, but somehow the transmission malfunctioned. They had only five minutes to make the pick and meanwhile that clock was
clicking down, so Alex Martins, the public relations director, called in on his cell phone to let Stern know they were taking me.

When Orlando drafted me, that little Florida city went nuts.

We flew in from Portland, Oregon, the day after the draft and it was insane. I couldn’t believe the greeting I got when I landed. People were jamming the airport terminal. The Orlando Magic mascot was there.
There was a Dixieland band playing. They had some of the most beautiful cheerleaders I’ve ever seen lined up on both sides.

There were signs welcoming me to Orlando, signs saying,
SHAQUILLE IS NO. 1
.

Pat Williams organized the whole thing. He was there and so was Bob Vander Weide, the son-in-law of Rich DeVos, who owned Amway and the Orlando Magic. Vander Weide was in basketball operations at
the time, but he became president of the team a couple of years later. The team did a great job of making me feel welcome, I can tell you that.

It reminded me of how I felt when they turned that spotlight on me at the LSU football game.

Dennis Tracey and I are looking at each other and saying, “Okay, so this is what it’s going to be like.”

I was twenty years old.

The truth is, before that
I wasn’t convinced I was going to be the first pick. That was what everyone was saying, but in my mind I was thinking about Christian Laettner and how much more fundamentally sound he was than me. Even though it was supposed to be a slam
dunk that I would be No. 1, I kept wondering if it would really happen, because Laettner had it all—the jumper, the footwork, the rebounding, the mental edge.
Even at that point of my life, when my career was about to take off, I still wasn’t 100 percent sure of my ability. I didn’t share my fears with anyone, but they kept me awake at night.

My father’s voice was ringing in my ears: “Stay humble, stay humble.”

When it all shook down, Alonzo Mourning ended up No. 2 and Laettner ended up No. 3. I was thinking, “They got that wrong.” But history tells
us they got it right after all.

It was a big step for me to move to a new city, buy my own house, make my own decisions, but I was ready.

Of course my mom wanted to be near me so she could keep an eye on me. In her mind, I was still her Shaquille and she needed to protect her “little warrior.” The first thing she did when I moved to Orlando was go to Walmart to buy me kitchen glasses, towels,
toasters, and a bunch of other things that I probably didn’t need.

I moved into my new house in September. One day we were talking to the mailman and he told us about a cornerback from the Green Bay Packers who had lost all his money and was trying to dump his place. We got my mom over there and she loved it. She would have loved anything, really. My mom wasn’t that picky. So Lucille and Sarge
moved in—right across the street from Bo Jackson.

My mom is such a kind, caring person and she doesn’t get impressed by anything. She’s sort of like my grandmother Odessa. When I got my first paycheck from the Magic I wanted to buy my grandmother a $6 million house. She said, “No, baby, there’s a nice house down the road there, it will do just fine.” So I bought her that house and fixed it up
for her.

Same thing with my mother. When I bought her that new Mercedes, emerald green, she said, “That’s nice honey, but I don’t want a Benz. I’ll take that little truck over there that costs twenty thousand dollars.” It was a used truck! I said, “Sorry, Mom, but you are going to take this Mercedes.”

Now that I had some money I wanted to buy myself some decent stereo stuff, so my mom came along
with me to a place called Sound Advice. I got in there and I was like a little kid. I wanted everything! I’m telling the guy, “We’ll take that TV and that turntable,” and my mom is panicking and she’s saying, “Son, slow down!” I tell her, “Mom, it’s okay, I’ve got this. You want something?”

Word gets out I’m shopping in the store, and now there are fans everywhere. I’m off to the side signing
autographs, and I see my mom talking to the manager. When I finally get to the counter to pay for my stuff the manager says, “Your mother has signed you up for the Lay-A-Way program.” I grabbed her and gave her a big kiss and told her, “Mom, I promise. Those days are over.”

Here’s what happens when you are the No. 1 pick in the draft and your name is Shaquille O’Neal: you sign a $13 million deal
with Pepsi, a $15 million deal with Reebok, and another $20–25 million from Kenner, Spaulding, and Scoreboard training cards.

Leonard was smart. He put us right in the middle of the cola war between Coke and Pepsi and the sneaker war between Nike and Reebok.

Obviously Nike was a giant. They had Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and my future neighbor Bo Jackson. They were really successful, but
I wanted my own success story.

When I visited Reebok they were all standing out front waiting for me wearing T-shirts that said,
WE WANT SHAQ
. We had a great day with Paul Fireman, and they wanted me to sign right there. That sounded good to me, but Leonard said, “No, we promised Nike we’d visit.”

I’ll admit my heart wasn’t in it. My father and I met Leonard on the Nike “campus” in Oregon, and
I showed up wearing a Reebok jacket. All the Nike people were very friendly, but after about an hour Leonard pulled me aside and said, “Shaq, you have to take off that jacket. It’s disrespectful. Phil Knight is going crazy over this.”

I took off the jacket, but I was going with Reebok. From that day on, those Nike dudes have had it in for me.

The summer before I reported for my first NBA training
camp, I
lived in Los Angeles with Dennis Tracey. I was trying to play basketball every day. I used to see Magic Johnson all the time, and he had a little game every morning at ten at UCLA. So I figured,
I better get over there and get busy
.

Leonard knew everyone in LA, so he got me invited into the game. I showed up the first day and I was all business. Let’s get to work. Tracy Murray was there
and Mitchell Butler, and Magic, and Mike Dunleavy Sr.—not the son who played for the Pacers, but the father who coached the Bucks and the Lakers and the Clippers. At this point he was still playing and he was on my team. The first time down the floor I got a rebound and Dunleavy was calling for me to throw it to him, but I’m saying, “Screw that!” and I went coast to coast. Was I trying to impress
people? Yes I was. I wasn’t nervous at all. I went in there planning to kick some ass.

Magic was very nice to me. We didn’t have a ton of conversations because I’m not a jock sniffer, but he kind of looked out for me. He gave me a lot of “Let’s go, young fella.” Those basketball games were really good, really competitive, and a great way to stay in shape. I played hard, but I wasn’t going to
show them everything—just enough so they’d all go back to their teams worried about me.

So life is good. Better than good. I’m soaking it all in. I’m in Los Angeles, but not La La Land. I’m having fun, I’m a millionaire, and I know more is coming, so I’m living on the edge a little bit. I’m buying stuff I shouldn’t buy, like cars and clothes and toys.

When I go to those pickup games at UCLA,
I’m walking in there thinking I’m a bad dude, but I’m not. I mean, Magic is there. He’s in charge. I’m just another guy.

Magic is picking the teams and keeping score. He’s there every morning running the show. In the games, he’d come at you with some bullshit move, and when he missed he’d yell “Foul!” We’d all roll our eyes, but he was Magic, so he got the call—just like in the real NBA.

I’d
known him a few years, and I was at his charity event, the Midsummer Night’s Magic. I had just won MVP, and he said to me, “Big
fella, you don’t want to be just a name. You want to own things.” Then he walked away.

I’m driving home and I’m wondering the whole time,
What was he talking about?
And then I realized what he meant. So we got to work on my own shoe. Then my own clothing line. Then my
own reality show. Thanks, Magic. Another idea I incorporated into my own unique Shaq style.

I handled things a little different than the other top picks. A lot of them had expensive cars and multiple houses right away. The first summer after I got drafted, Dennis Tracey and I lived in Oakwood Apartments on Sepulveda in Los Angeles. Dennis rented a Volvo, and that’s how we rolled all summer.

We lived near all these fabulous clubs but we couldn’t get into any of them because I was too young. The Roxy was right there, we drove by it every day, but I never went inside. I had to work my way up to that stuff.

Sarge had warned me about becoming a “sudden celebrity.” All of a sudden you have friends you haven’t even met before. All of a sudden people like quarterback Doug Williams wants
to have lunch with you. Luckily for me, Doug Williams was cool. He just wanted me to know he was there for me if I had any questions.

I was in LA and I was starting to get hot, and I kept running into Arsenio Hall, who had a really popular nighttime talk show out there. Every time I saw him he’d say, “Why don’t you come on the show?” I kept saying, “No, thanks,” because I wasn’t really sure what
I’d talk about.

So now some of my commercials are coming out and I’ve just been named Rookie of the Year, and I’m getting recognized everywhere and I go back to Los Angeles for the summer again. Arsenio asks me again about coming on and I was kind of joking around and I said, “Well, if I’m going to be on the show, I’ve got to do something different. I don’t want to be like all the other athletes.”
Arsenio said, “What do you have in mind?” Up to that moment I didn’t have
anything in mind, but then this popped into my head: “Can I rap on your show with my favorite group?”

He loved the idea. So we contacted Fu Schnickens, these three rappers from Brooklyn who had a great sound, and we recorded “What’s Up Doc.” Everyone was surprised how good it was.

Here are my favorite lines:

Forget Tony
Danza, I’m the boss

When it comes to money, I’m like Dick Butkus

Now who’s the first pick me, word is born and

Not Christian Laettner not Alonzo Mourning

That’s okay, not being bragadocious

Supercalifrageltistic, Shaq is alidocious

Peace, I gotta go, I ain’t no joke

Now I slam it

Jam it, and make sure it’s broke
.

Before we performed together on Arsenio’s show, Fu Schnickens came to
the house and recorded the song. They wanted to write my verse for me, but I did it myself.

So we go on the
Arsenio Hall Show
and I’ve got this red outfit on that this girl at the mall made for me. It’s got glitter and the sleeves are cut off and I’m looking mighty fine. It’s a live audience. We’re doing this rap and you can tell everyone is really enjoying it. They thought I was going to make
a fool of myself. They didn’t realize before I do anything I make sure I’m prepared.

Jive Records offered me a record deal the next day. I told them, “I don’t want to rap by myself. My concept is to rap with all my favorite artists.” So that’s what we did.

My first album, called
Shaq Diesel
, had Fu Schnickens, Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest, and Erick Sermon. It went platinum, which means
we sold a million records. I also did a song with
Def Jef called “(I Know I Got) Skillz” that made it to number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100.