On the Court With... Shaquille O'Neal (3 page)

Before Cole figured out what was happening, Shaquille had been charged with four fouls in the first quarter. The rules of
high school basketball state
that after five fouls, a player is ineligible to play the remainder of the game. Coach Madura had to remove Shaquille from
the game so he wouldn't foul out.

His teammates played hard without him and did their best, but Liberty Hills took command of the game. Although Shaquille eventually
returned in the fourth quarter, Cole was far behind by then. They lost for the first time all season.

Shaquille was crushed. He sat in the locker in tears after the game, convinced that he had cost his team a chance to win.
Cole assistant coach Ken Nakamura tried to console him afterward and told him he had to learn from the defeat. “Remember this
feeling,” said Nakamura. Shaquille was determined to do everything possible to make sure he never felt that bad again.

Although Shaquille was disappointed to lose the final game of the season, now that he had a taste of success, he was determined
to achieve even more. He started working out with weights and got even stronger. He joined a summer league team and played
basketball almost every day. His strength, stamina, and leaping ability improved tremendously.

Shaquille also started studying the game of basketball. He watched professional basketball on television
whenever he could and started picking up tips from the pros. He saw how they jockeyed for position without being called for
fouls and how they used fakes to get easy shots.

In the summer before Shaquille's senior year, Coach Madura's only concern in regard to Shaquille was that he was so big and
strong — now nearly seven feet tall and 300 pounds — that few players his age were providing him with a challenge. He was
afraid that Shaquille would develop bad habits playing against less-talented players and that when he finally went up against
another player of his own size and ability, he wouldn't know how to respond. He also realized that other teams would try to
get Shaquille in foul trouble just as Liberty Hills had. Shaquille still had to learn how to play hard without committing
fouls.

Coach Madura decided that Shaquille needed some special attention. He contacted a former player named Herb More and offered
him a job as assistant coach. Before Shaquille, More had probably been the best player in the history of Cole High School.
He still held the single-game scoring record.

Madura told More all about Shaquille. He had a plan.

“I want you to work with this kid,” he said. “We've got a chance at the state title, but I don't have anyone to work with
him at practice.” More, who was six feet six inches tall, understood. His role at practice would be to play against Shaquille
and give him some competition.

More played Shaquille tough during practice and was much more physical against him than most high school players. He knew
that when Shaquille played against smaller players, many referees would allow those players to get away with fouls. He wanted
Shaquille to become accustomed to being knocked around without retaliating. Still, as More recalled later, from the very beginning,
“Whenever he wanted, he'd just push me out of the way.”

Shaquille and the Cole basketball team had been a big surprise in his junior year. Now every team on their schedule knew that
Shaquille was one of the best players in the state and that Cole was one of the best teams in Texas. It was time for the rest
of the world to discover Shaquille, too.

Just before the start of the basketball season, Shaquille was invited to play for the San Antonio team at the Basketball Congress
International tournament. Teams from cities all over the country entered the
tournament, including most of the top high school players. Hundreds of college scouts attended the tournament to evaluate
players. The tournament would be a big test for Shaquille. Never before had he played against so many talented players, and
for the first time in his basketball career he would have to play against players almost as big as he was.

At the beginning of the tournament, hardly anyone knew who Shaquille was. By the end of the tournament, everyone did. As Shaquille
recalled later, “I just kept dunking and dunking.”

It didn't matter who was guarding Shaquille or how they tried to defend him. He just kept raising his game to another level.
It was as if with each shot, Shaquille was discovering just how good he could be.

Basketball insiders were stunned. They'd never heard of Shaquille before, but he was easily the best player in the entire
tournament, which meant that he was easily one of the best high school players in the country. A basketball magazine wrote
a story on him that said just that. Before long, San Antonio newspapers sent reporters to write about him as well. All of
a sudden he was famous.

Before the tournament, only a few small colleges in Texas had expressed interest in Shaquille. But
after the tournament, all the best college basketball programs in the nation wanted Shaquille to attend their school. He was
flooded with letters and scholarship offers from colleges all over the country.

Shaquille's father and Coach Madura quickly took over the college recruiting process. They knew that Shaquille needed to focus
on what he was doing and not be distracted by all the attention. Phil Harrison and Coach Madura weeded through all the offers,
selected ten, and threw all the other letters away. Only those ten schools would be allowed to communicate with Shaquille.

Among the few coaches and schools they allowed to speak with Shaquille was North Carolina and its legendary coach Dean Smith.
Michael Jordan had attended North Carolina and played for Smith. Another coach they allowed to contact Shaquille was Louisiana
State coach Dale Brown. Shaquille remembered the way Brown had gone out of his way to offer him encouragement a couple of
years earlier. Shaquille had watched LSU play on television and liked the fast, up-tempo style of play Brown taught. The Tigers
were one of the best teams in the country, and Shaquille knew that several of their
frontcourt players were scheduled to graduate. Brown hadn't forgotten about Shaquille, either. In fact, he had been watching
his progress closely.

Shaquille took a close look at several schools and met with their basketball coaches. Most told him what a big star he would
be and how he would be on the starting team right away. But when Shaquille met with Coach Brown, he wasn't promised a spot
in the starting lineup. “You
might
be able to play,” said Coach Brown. He made it clear that Shaquille would have to work for everything he wanted to accomplish.
Shaquille liked that. He didn't want a place in the starting lineup handed to him.

Shaquille also knew that if he chose LSU, he wouldn't be expected to carry the team on his shoulders. LSU already had a star,
guard Chris Jackson, who would be doing that. LSU was also closer to his home in San Antonio than many of the other colleges,
such as North Carolina. When Coach Brown offered him a scholarship, Shaquille agreed to go to LSU.

There were only two things that could stop Shaquille from reaching college now — an unfortunate injury or his academic eligibility.
A bad injury could
ruin his career. Poor grades or poor scores on the college entrance tests could also prevent him from being accepted into
school.

But Shaquille had learned to take care of his body to prevent injuries by working out, and he had taken a similar approach
in the classroom. He studied hard, paid attention, and did his homework. His grades were good enough, but he still had to
do well on one of the two college entrance tests, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT).

Shaquille didn't take any chances. Although he needed a good score on only one of the tests, he took both. The results of
the SAT came back first.

Shaquille was disappointed. Despite his good grades, he had fallen behind and his score was too low for him to get into LSU.
Now he regretted all the times he had wasted fooling around in school when he was younger. Although he'd worked hard since
then, he believed his earlier attitude had cost him.

Fortunately, although the two tests are similar, they aren't identical. He had a much easier time with the ACT, and his scores
were more than sufficient for him to enroll at LSU. He would even be
able to play as a freshman. A new rule, known as Proposition 48, sometimes requires students with marginal scores to sit out
their freshman season until they can prove they can do collegiate work. But Shaquille wouldn't have to wait. He would be allowed
to play right away.

Now he was able to focus on his senior year at Cole. Expectations for both Shaquille and the team were high. Every team they
faced would be trying their best to beat them. And in order to defeat Cole, the opposition would have to stop Shaquille.

That was easier said than done. Shaquille was learning fast, and More had prepared him for everything he was about to face
on the basketball court.

Most schools used a similar strategy to try to stop Shaquille. When Cole had the ball, they'd place one defender behind him
to try to keep him away from the basket, and one or two players in front of him to prevent him from getting the ball on a
pass. But this often left other Cole players wide-open. And when the defense scrambled to cover those players, Shaquille was
left open for a pass or given a clear path to the basket for either a dunk or a shot from close range.

Still, almost every time Shaquille got near the
ball, a player on the other team would act as if he was fouled and try to fool the referee. If Shaquille gave another player
the slightest bump, the other player would fly through the air as if Shaquille had run into him at full speed.

But Shaquille had learned his lesson in the game against Liberty Hills and in practice playing against Coach More. On offense
he became adept at passing the ball so that when the defense collapsed on him, he could make room for himself on the court.
On defense he played aggressively but he also played smart. He didn't try to cover everyone or try to block shots that he
had no chance of reaching. And when he jumped in the air, he stayed in control.

Everyone who watched Shaquille play in his senior year was impressed. He wasn't just good; he was great, regularly scoring
more than 30 points a game. Some people were already saying that Shaquille was as good as many centers in the NBA. All he
lacked was experience.

In professional basketball, the center is perhaps the most important player on the team. Yet at the same time, “true” centers
are rare. Although there are many tall players in the NBA, very few are as big and strong as Shaquille or know how to play
close to
the basket. Those who do often don't have very good basketball skills.

Shaquille was becoming a very special player, someone with size, strength, and ability. He knew how to pass the ball and put
it on the floor and dribble when he had to. He had what other players call “soft hands,” the ability to catch the ball and
shoot it smoothly. In many ways, he reminded fans of some of the greatest centers in basketball history, such as Wilt Chamberlain.
Chamberlain, like Shaquille, was big and strong and talented. In many games he led his team in scoring, rebounds, blocked
shots, and assists (passes to another player that lead to a score). He once scored 100 points in a single game in the NBA
and averaged more than 50 points a game for an entire season! People looked at Shaquille and thought he could be the same
kind of player.

Nothing he did in his senior year at Cole made them think differently. Graduation of some veteran players forced Coach Madura
to change Cole's offense from a fast-break style to a half-court game designed to get the ball to Shaquille. But that didn't
mean Shaquille had to shoot the ball every time he touched it.

In one game Shaquille demonstrated just how
much he meant to the team and how versatile he had become. In a game against Sweeney High School, he was covered like a blanket.
That didn't bother Shaquille. When he did get the ball, he didn't try to force a shot but passed off to his teammates. On
defense he dominated, soaring into the air over and over again, blocking shots, pulling down rebounds, and helping out his
teammates.

Shaquille scored only 4 points in the game, but he blocked more than 20 shots. The Cougars won by 37 points!

Midway through the season, Shaquille exploded in a game against Lampasas High School. He poured in 47 points to break the
school single-game scoring record held by Coach More.

Every time Cole played, the gyms were packed to capacity as fans all over San Antonio turned out to see him play. Most wanted
to see him dunk the ball. While it is legal to dunk during a game in high school, it is not allowed during pregame practice.
But crowds became so big and so vocal that the referees often stayed in the locker room until just before the game so Shaquille
could dunk the ball a few times and make the crowd happy.

Once again Cole made it through the regular season undefeated. This time they were determined to win the state championship.
They roared through the tournament to reach the finals against Clarksville High School. Just like Liberty Hills only one year
earlier, Clarksville tried everything to get Shaquille in foul trouble. The strategy almost worked.

At the start of the fourth quarter, Cole led comfortably, 53–44. Shaquille already had 30 points. Then he was whistled for
his fourth foul. Coach Madura pulled him from the game and hoped his team could hold on.

But now Clarksville stormed back. Cole couldn't score, and with only five minutes remaining in the game their lead was down
to one point, 54–53.

On the Cougar bench, Coach Madura looked at Shaquille.

“If I put you back in, can you stay away from your fifth foul?” he screamed above the noise of the crowd.

Shaquille set his jaw and looked at his coach. “Yes, Coach,” he said. “I can.”

“Get in there,” yelled Madura. He knew he was taking a chance. If Shaquille picked up a quick foul,
Clarksville would have the advantage in the game's final minutes. But if he waited any longer to put Shaquille back in the
game, it might be too late.