To say Shaquille O’Neal has always had a penchant for getting himself into trouble growing up wouldn’t be wrong. The 7-footer may have intimated many with his dominating presence on the court, but in fact, Shaq was scared of getting his a** whooped every now and then, back in his childhood.
In a candid excerpt from his book Shaq Uncut, the former NBA star recounted a moment from his youth where he let his temper get the best of him during an AAU basketball game.
“Up to that point I still managed to find trouble just about all the time. One spring I played on an AAU team with Charles “Bo” Outlaw, and we went to Tempe, Arizona, for a tournament. We were playing a team from the state of Washington, and this guy kept fouling me really hard.”
Shaq, who lost his cool frequently on the court, did not take the aggressive play lightly. Even before setting his foot on the NBA courts, a young Shaquille O’Neal was locking horns with opponents.
“I told him he shouldn’t do that again but he did, so I turned around and I punched him in the face. The AAU people didn’t like that so much, so they kicked me out. Permanently. I messed up that kid pretty bad, so they sent me home.”
Unbeknownst to many, Shaq had really strict parents and the fact that he got kicked out of the AAU team for good wouldn’t sit well with his stepdad. But thanks to his lucky stars, Shaq’s father was away with the Army, and he was saved from a possible ‘a** whooping’. In fact, Philip Harrison didn’t come to know of the incident until much, much later.
“Luckily for me, my father wasn’t there. He was in training for a couple of months, so he was out of town for a while and he never found out about it—until now. Sorry, Sarge,” Shaq recounted.
Shaq once got into trouble for stealing M&Ms
In fact, Shaq’s troubles extended beyond the basketball court. In a recent episode of The Big Shaq podcast, the NBA legend related another hilarious incident when he attempted to swipe some M&Ms.
“As soon as we get home we would be like,’ what the hell you all been doing? Empty your pockets. Where the f**k you’ll get some M&Ms from?’ A** whooping!”
While recounting the incident Shaq couldn’t help laughing at the fact that as a child, he used to get his a** whooped for stealing something as petty.
Troubles have not quite left the NBA icon’s shadow. He last faced a lawsuit in the FTX cryptocurrency debacle, where he was sued and subsequently attempted to evade being served papers in 2022.
