Shaquille O’Neal is arguably the most dominant force the NBA has ever seen, but he wasn’t always the imposing presence he became known for. The Hall of Famer was always a big kid, but had it not been for his father, Shaq may not have put the necessary work in to be an elite athlete. The Diesel recently discussed his stepfather’s lessons that impacted him throughout his career during his appearance on The Tonight Show.
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Growing up without his biological father around, it was Shaq’s stepfather, Phillip Harrison, who filled the role in his life. Harrison was a drill sergeant in the United States Army, a reveal that garnered heavy applause from Jimmy Fallon’s crowd, which was filled with military veterans.
As a result of his occupation, Harrison adopted a no-nonsense approach to fatherhood. Harrison was tough on Shaq and his siblings, a fact that the Lakers legend has touched on multiple times. But Harrison was also filled with wisdom and nurtured Shaq’s love of basketball. O’Neal explained to Fallon how his stepfather’s lesson on pressure helped him get through a tough stretch early in his career.
“So, it was sort of like ‘The Karate Kid’, like he had small little sayings that didn’t really make sense at the time, but they made sense,” Shaq said to Fallon after the longtime television personality shared that he heard Harrison fueled the big man’s work ethic in his early playing days.
“To your Knicks story, I had a terrible game versus the Knicks,” Shaq continued. “He made me fly home. And what I didn’t like about the military, he was like, ‘Meet me at the house at 0700.’ So now I gotta do math in my head, 12 minus 7.”
Shaq continued to explain his comparison to the 1984 box office hit and how his stepfather played a role in his life similar to Mr. Miyagi. “I met him at his house in Orlando, and we got in the car. And he’s the type; you don’t speak unless you’re spoken to … So, we’re driving, and we go under this bridge. And before we approached the family, he said, ‘You couldn’t handle the pressure?'”
Shaq would prove throughout the course of his legendary 19-year career that he could handle the pressure, winning four championships and an MVP award. But at this point, he hadn’t accomplished any of that, yet. So, he admitted that the pressure did get the better of him during his Magic’s recent contest against the New York Knicks.
“And I was like, ‘Yeah, it was Madison Square Garden. Patrick Ewing one of my favorite players, I couldn’t handle it,” Shaq recalled his response. “And he says to me, ‘Pressure is when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.’ And there was a homeless family sitting right there … He said, ‘That’s pressure.'”
Harrison lambasted Shaq and other athletes who are given luxurious contracts for blaming their underwhelming performances on “pressure.” The 15-time All-Star shared that he went on to help the aforementioned homeless family get an apartment and job, but it was his father’s words that completely warped his perspective on what pressure truly is.
Shaq has adopted the same mentality about pressure as his stepfather had throughout his own life. Pressure no longer applies to small things in life. As a result, he no doesn’t believe in pressure anymore. With generational wealth and a supportive family by his side, Shaq knows he’s escaped a life of true pressure.
