A championship loss at the tender age of 10 helped Shaquille O’Neal learn an important life lesson from his father.
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Shaquille O’Neal has been one of the most dominant big men in the history of the league. Standing at 7 feet, weighing a staggering 325 pounds, The Diesel was able to command over the paint.
With the virtue of him bullying grown men in the paint, Shaq built his entire fortune. Over the span of his near-two-decade-long career, The Big Aristotle ended up with one of the most illustrious resumes ever. The Hall-Of-Famer’s overly-stacked trophy cabinet includes 15 All-Star appearances, 14 All-NBA selections, 2 scoring titles, 1 MVP, 4 championships, and 3 Finals MVPs, among a whole bunch of other accolades.
Unfortunately, Shaq wasn’t on good terms with his biological father. However, Phillip A. Harrison, O’Neal’s stepfather, played an important role in his life, teaching him numerous life lessons that helped the former Lakers legend build a massive $400 million fortune.
One of the ways that Harrison imparted a 10-year-old Shaq a valuable lesson was by making his basketball team lose in the championship game.
“Shaquille O’Neal, it’s not about you all the time”: The Laker legend’s father
In an old clip, the member of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team stated how his father, who also was his coach between 8-14 years of age, removed him from the championship game. O’Neal recollected:
“My father taught me how to play football. I won the punt passing kick contest. Taught me how to play baseball, t ball used to hit a lot of home runs. Taught me how to play basketball, he was my coach from age 8 to 14 years old.
So one time I want to say I was 10 years old, we were playing, we were in a championship game. So I would usually start the game off, me and my guys. Then he put the guys that couldn’t play, put them in, and then you know we finished the game. But he flip flopped at this time and my father takes me out and he puts in a couple guys that couldn’t play and we lost the championship.
I got the second place trophy and I was pretty upset and I asked him, I said ‘why did you do that?’ And he said ‘listen, it’s not about you all the time. These kids you know, they come, they practice hard, they do the same drills that you do. They wanted to play, it’s not all about winning’.
I was like ‘But I was trying to win the number 1 trophy’. He said ‘you win a number 1 trophy when you go to college and when you go to the NBA’.”
Also Read: Shaquille O’Neal owes Kevin Hart $1000 over a very comical bet made on Tik-Tok
