Athletes, their stature notwithstanding, are known to stick to superstitious quirks as pre-game rituals. Shaquille O’Neal was a stickler to his version of this indulgence. And it was literally an indulgence. His ritual, he once confessed, consisted of eating two turkey club sandwiches, french fries, pineapple soda, and a four-hour nap. There was another adorable one involving his mother Lucille when Shaq was kid, which was a far cry from his usual ‘tough guy’ antics.
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In a 2019 interview with Today’s Sheinelle Jones, Lucille revealed that a young Shaq wanted her to watch all his games from the stands.
“I used to wink my eyes at Shaquille, he could see that far. So I gave him a wink and a smile, and he would play his game,” Lucille was quoted as saying.
This continued till he got into the NBA, when Lucille and Shaq devised another ritual.
“I’d give him bubble gum, and then I’d give him a kiss, and then I’d say, ‘Play your game.’ As a grown man, but he went to the league early, he was 19, and I travelled with him for the first year,” added Lucille.
This ritual lasted for a year, until it became practically impossible for Lucille to travel to all of her son’s games. And, as we know now, his pre-game ritual took on a gastronomical turn too.
Lucille, like any mom would, wanted Shaq to be the best on the court. That meant she would not just throw kisses, but at times try and give her son tips too. One of those maternal interventions was something the big man didn’t enjoy much.
When Shaq said no to mom’s Help With free throws
A notoriously bad free-throw shooter, Shaq shot a dismal 52.7% from the charity line right through his career. Lucille knew the big fella was concerned by the dismal numbers.
In an interview earlier this year, she spoke about how she attempted to improve her son’s free-throw shooting by providing him with a tip on how to go about it.
“I got a sign one day, and I was holding it up in the arena. it said, ‘bend your knees, bend you knees.’ So we would have eye contact,” said Lucille.
That would have been too much of a distraction for Shaq, who was already under pressure lining up the shot.
Lucille added: “But he told me one day ‘I don’t need that sign, I would like for you to not put it up anymore.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about that, just play your game, and have fun. just have fun’.”
Over time, Shaq made Lucille understand that he knew best about how to fix the issues with his game.
Of course, Lucille was giving him tips with motherly affection. And there is no doubt Shaq appreciated that as well as the big role his mom played in his success.
