Shaquille O’Neal had quite a childhood growing up. As some NBA fans might be aware, O’Neal was raised singlehandedly by his mother and eventually gained a stepfather called Philip Harrison. He has given an incredible amount of credit and respect to Harrison for raising him over the years.
Taking care of and disciplining a young Shaq would have been no easy task. After all, he wasn’t the most mature teenager growing up and got into a lot of trouble for beating up a boy from his school when he was only 13 years old. These actions led to him learning a lesson that he would never forget. Let us take a closer look and find out what happened.
Shaquille O’Neal opens up about his troublesome childhood
According to the reports, Shaq was ratted out by one of his classmates for throwing a spit wad at the board. Since he was going to be in a lot of trouble, O’Neal got into a fight with him However, things took a turn for the worse after the boy collapsed and started having Epileptic seizures.
Thankfully, nothing life-threatening occurred and the boy managed to make a full recovery. However, that did not stop Philip Harrison from strongly reprimanding his son for his actions. O’Neal revealed how the interaction went down in his book Shaq Uncut.
“My father beat me silly for that. Every time he hit me, he said, “You idiot! You could have killed that kid. You’d be in jail the rest of your life.”
Harrison must have felt that merely talking about what could have happened wouldn’t be enough to sway his stepson. Therefore, he decided to ensure that Shaq was given a tour of jail so that he could see what his life could have potentially been like. When interviewed by Kelly Partners, O’Neal revealed how those events unfolded.
“So one time I had an incident and I almost took this boy’s life. And from that day on, I was like 12 or 13 years old, I had to change my life…Because my father was well known and the kid didn’t pass away, the guard took me on a tour to the jail and said, If this kid had passed away, this is where you would have been.”
Although this kind of reminder would have certainly startled O’Neal, he revealed that it was also very effective and urged him to change his approach to life. We are glad to see that this experience had a positive impact on the NBA legend and also likely turned him into a better person.