Shaquille O’Neal is a Hall of Famer and one of the most dominant NBA players in history, but even he had moments early in his career where he struggled to handle the spotlight. One of those moments resulted in a life lesson from his late stepfather that would stay with him forever.
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A Lesson In Perspective
After a rough game against the New York Knicks during his rookie season with the Orlando Magic, O’Neal felt overwhelmed. “I let the pressure get to me,” he recalled in a 2024 interview. His stepfather, the late Army drill sergeant Phillip Harrison, wasn't having it.
He called his son and told him to come home immediately. “Be here tomorrow at 0500 a.m.,” Harrison instructed. “Yes, sir,” Shaq replied.
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Shaq showed up on time the next morning, and they drove in silence. When O’Neal spoke, his stepfather snapped, clearly angry that Shaq had let pressure get to him. As they drove under a bridge, they saw a homeless family sleeping in a tent. They waited in the car, silently, for more than an hour as the family slowly woke up — first the man, then his wife, and finally two young children.
“He said, ‘What happened to the game yesterday?’ I said, ‘Man, I don’t know. I let the pressure get to me.'” Harrison then gave it to him straight: “That’s pressure. Pressure is when you don’t know when your next meal is coming from.”
O’Neal retold the same story in a recent interview on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” where he emphasized his stepfather’s frustration with athletes who complain. Harrison had said, “I’m tired of you spoiled, rich athletes making all this money who don’t perform at the level that you’re supposed to perform to, blaming it on pressure.”
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That moment changed O’Neal’s perspective. He got out of the car and spoke to the man, who had recently lost his job and was struggling to take care of his wife and two kids. Moved by the encounter, Shaq called a friend and arranged a three-bedroom apartment for the family for $36,000. He also found the man a job through another contact.
Two years later, the man had started his own lawn service business and was cutting Shaq’s grass in Orlando, Florida.
“Pressure to me is when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from,” O’Neal told Jimmy Fallon. “So I don’t really believe in the word ‘pressure’ anymore.”
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Putting Family First
Shaq’s appreciation for his parents showed up in other major ways. When he signed his first NBA contract in 1992, he didn't just buy them gifts—he put them on the payroll.
“The first thing I did was incorporate ‘Shaq,’ and then I put my mom on salary and put my dad on salary,” he said in a 2022 interview on “Drink Champs.”
His stepfather was earning $60,000 in the Army. Shaq asked him, “How much you make in the Army?” When Harrison said the number, Shaq replied, “Now you making half a million a year.” Harrison cried.
Shaq asked his mom what she wanted to make and ended up paying her $750,000 annually.
Read Next: The average American couple has saved this much money for retirement — How do you compare?
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