Shaquille O’Neal being as dominant as he was something his father wasn’t all too content with. Shaq’s biological father, Joseph Toney, was never truly in his life as his mother, Lucille O’Neal, would be forced to raise him as a single mother. She would take on a slew of jobs to provide for herself and her son.
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Lucille would then meet a military man by the name of Phillip Harrison whom she would marry. She revealed on the ‘Raising Fame’ podcast that she had made it very clear to Mr. Harrison that her and her son were a package deal and only if he was willing to accept that would she marry him.
Harrison was the foremost father figure in Shaq’s life and he even considers him to be his actual father to this day despite his passing. However, with Phillip having a military background, Shaq had quite the tough upbringing.
Shaquille O’Neal on his father berating him for missing free throws
Phillip Harrison is the reason for why Shaquille O’Neal got into basketball. Harrison took him to a Philadelphia 76ers game to watch his son’s favorite NBA player, Julius Erving, play. After seeing him up close, Shaq decided that he wanted to be in the NBA.
Harrison would then go on to dedicate large chunks of time to helping Shaq hone his skills, he would start to show improvement in his play. While on the Pat McAfee Show, ‘The Big Aristotle’ would go on to talk about how his father would yell at him for missing free throws.
“Growing up in a drill sergeant environment, my dad wasn’t satisfied with a good amount. We had to be damn near perfect so whenever I scored 30 points, somebody would say ‘He had a dominant game’. He would say, ‘No, he missed 12 free throws, you should’ve had 42 points.’”
Shaq’s dominance is a result of his father’s efforts
Shaquille O’Neal growing up with a father like Phillip Harrison meant he would need to prove himself on a daily basis. One moment during a high school game of his, he would try to finger roll the ball into the hoop rather than dunk it.
His father would yell at him incessantly at halftime, telling him to start acting like Shaq and stop emulating Julius Erving. Since then. The 4x champ has admitted that since that day, he’s been playing aggressively as a way to prove his worth to Harrison.
