Shaquille O’Neal had been a dominant force in the NBA since his draft in 1992. The Orlando Magic, recognizing his dominance and power, drafted the center as the 1st overall pick and extended a $17,000,000 rookie contract to him. However, Shaq had a much more eventful life before all of this, with lessons in each incident. Due to his stepfather Sergeant Phillip Harrison’s military assignment, Shaquille O’Neal temporarily lived in Germany. Back then, Shaq encountered a person named Cleveland, who was a big and tough guy. In Shaq’s recollection, he portrayed the individual named Cleveland as bullish, intimidating other children if they failed to meet his demands. Cleveland led the school gang called the Furious Five, and Shaq was a member of the gang. Shaq earned the nickname “Shocka D” because of his imposing stature and impressive dancing abilities.
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While this gang would constitute to be a typical school bully, there was almost a point where young Shaq would almost have engaged in juvenile crime. Cleveland and his friends decided to steal a car and forced Shaq to participate in that act. However, Shaq refused to do so, thanks to a disciplined upbringing by his stepfather, according to Shaq Talks Back.
The authorities almost charged Shaquille O’Neal with juvenile delinquency for stealing a car
Shaquille O’Neal’s childhood stories are entertaining and worth hearing. In his book Shaq Talks Back, he detailed an incident at the army base in Germany. During his time in Germany, Shaq faced a challenging situation where some of his peers pressured him into participating in car theft. However, Shaq made a deliberate choice to refuse their demands, fully aware of the potential consequences it could have on his future. Shaq upheld his principles with unwavering determination, prioritizing integrity over giving in to wrongdoing, even when his peers mocked him and called him a “punk.”
To understand this incident in Shaq’s own words, here is an excerpt from the book:
“In Germany, everybody wanted to be this guy named Cleveland. He was big and strong, used to beat people up. So he’d tell us to do things and we would do them. If we didn’t, he would come after us. He had his gang in school. They had little cutoff jean jackets. The only reason I was allowed into the Furious Five was because I could dance and I could fight. They used to call me Shocka D.”
He continued:
“The turning point came when these guys I was hanging out with stole a car in Germany on the army base. There were some nice sunglasses on the dashboard. So they busted the window, broke in the door and decided to steal the car. I just kind of stood back and said, ‘You know what, I’m not messing with you all today.’ One of them said, ‘You’re a punk.’ ‘Yeah, I’m a punk.’ And I walked away. They got caught. I said to myself later, if I had been with those cats, I would have been done. That was the end of the Furious Five. I never heard of Cleveland again. I learned to think for myself that day because of Sarge’s discipline.”
A lot of Shaq’s discipline and ethics came from the upbringing by his parents, both mother Lucile and father Sarge Phillip Harrison. He is thankful that his father’s thrashing and strict lifestyle profoundly impacted the person he had become.
Shaq’s stepfather’s strict lifestyle played a huge role in shaping his personality
Phillip Harrison, Shaquille O’Neal’s stepfather, instilled in him a strong sense of discipline that contributed to the admirable qualities we all love and admire in Shaq. Harrison was an army officer who wanted to imbibe the same discipline as himself in his children. Shaq recalled that he often thrashed his children for wrongdoings and other transgressions.
Shaq would also recall his stepfather’s huge role in his championship-winning mentality. He often told his son, “Go get another one, motherf***er,” after every championship Shaq had won. He did this not to make Shaq a complacent person.
