“Nothing You can Say or do to Me that’s gonna Hurt My Feelings!”: Shaquille O’Neal describes a bullying incident from childhood, talks about his father

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal talks about his childhood, describes a bullying incident involving his stepfather and a scarecrow

When one thinks of Shaquille O’Neal, they imagine a 7’1, 325 lbs man who’s generous and has a great sense of humor. That description is perfectly accurate, but it wasn’t always like this. Right from when he was a kid, to his entire journey in the NBA, Shaq was a menace. A 7’1 giant who was almost guaranteed to score from when he got to the paint.

Shaq terrorized the entire NBA. Coaches tried to find ways to stop the big man and often ended up unsuccessful. One of the reasons behind Shaq’s greatness was his step father, Sergeant Phillip Arthur Harrison. Even though he may not have given Shaq the genes he possesses, his stepfather has had a huge role to play.

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He introduced Shaq to the game of basketball and taught him discipline. Using the knowledge his stepfather passed to him, Shaq became one of the game’s all-time greats.

Shaquille O’Neal shares a childhood bullying story and explains how he stays unfazed

Being in the NBA, there are always bound to be fans and haters alike. When you’re dominating your opponents like Shaq used to, their fans are sure to get salty and try and say mean things. However, due to his stepfather’s teachings, Shaq knew how to keep his cool and not get bothered by such things.

On an episode of The Big Podcast with Shaq, the big man said,

“I’m from New Jersey. I was raised by a drill sergeant. There ain’t nothing you can say or do to me that’s gonna hurt my feelings. You can talk about my mamma, you can talk about my daddy. You ain’t gonna hurt my feelings. If I get mad, I’m going to react, in a way you ain’t gonna like it. So let’s go to high school — I pull up there’s a black scarecrow hanging from a tree with my jersey on it. So now I’m already mad. But listen I know the psychology. I know they trying to scare me. My dad down there. He sees it he’s going off, he look he said — I got your back.”

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To have a scarecrow hanging from the tree with his jersey like that would’ve been very harrowing. However, Shaq didn’t let the same bother him, and used it as motivation to go after his opponents even harder in the next game.