Shaquille O’ Neal

Did you know that one of the most well-known basketball players in the world is from Brick City? Prior to becoming an NBA superstar, Shaquille O’Neal was born in Newark, New Jersey, on March 6, 1972, to parents Lucille O'Neal and Joe Toney. However, it was his stepfather Phillip Arthur Harrison’s career as an Army sergeant that would take O’Neal and his mother out of New Jersey and move to Germany and later San Antonio, Texas. During his upbringing in Newark, he says the Boys & Girls Clubs of America location in the city gave him a safe place to play basketball as a carefree kid while keeping him off the streets. He would eventually go on to study at Louisiana State University (LSU), where he would play for coach Dale Brown where the 7-foot-one tall athlete would go on to have a stellar college career, winning a two-time All-American, two-time SECO Player of the Year and receive the Adolph Rupp Trophy as the NCAA men’s basketball Player of the year in 1991. O’Neal would leave LSU early to take his shot at the chance to get into the NBA. In the 1992 NBA Draft, he was the first overall pick and found a home with the Orlando Magic, where he would play with Hall of Famer Magic Johnson. He would eventually go on to win Rooke of the Year in 1993 with a dominant performance leading him up to the finals. In 1994, he would make another move, but this time to the Los Angeles Lakers for a staggering $121-million dollar contract, but not before securing a gold medal in the 1996 Olympics. It was during his time with the Lakers that he would play together with then-teen superstar Kobe Bryant. By the year 2000, O’Neal had been named the most valuable player of the season. He stayed on the team until 2004, when he moved on to play with the Miami Heat, in addition to short stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns, and the Boston Celtics before retiring from the game in 2011. Outside of his lustrous NBA career, the basketball champion has made an empire in the entertainment world as a media personality in addition to investing in savvy business ventures. Because of this, the Brick City native’s legacy and popularity is known far and wide. O’Neal was inducted into the LSU Hall of Fame in 2019 with a 900-pound bronze statue of his likeness located in the front of the school’s basketball facility. In 2023, athletic giant Reebok named him President of their basketball division.