By that point we were used to having our gum. We
had
to have it. So we stole it. We’d develop all sorts of elaborate plans to distract
the guy at the cash register so we wouldn’t get caught. One day, Andre and I were chewing our gum and my grandfather said to me, “Where did you get that gum?” I didn’t want to tell him I stole it, so I told him a nice lady gave it to me. My grandfather said, “How many times do we have to tell you not to talk to strangers?” So Andre and I got a whupping for that, too.
When I was about eight I
started going to the Boys and Girls Club and we played basketball for hours and hours. On the weekends my dad started teaching me the fundamentals. Philip Harrison was a
very good city ballplayer, or so all the people in Newark tell me. They say Sarge and my natural father were the two best in the area growing up. My uncle, Mike Parris, once told me Philip Harrison was a cross between Robert Parish
and George Gervin.
Philip taught me how to box out and shoot with my elbow tucked in the right way. One of the first books he ever gave me was a story of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s life. I read the whole thing, and one part of the book was about how Kareem lost all his money investing in soybeans. I told myself, “When I get rich, that’s not happening to me.”
Looking back, at that age I wasn’t very
good at basketball. I was clumsy. I hadn’t really grown into my body yet, so I fumbled around with the ball at first. Of course everyone expected me to be excellent because I was so big. Good luck explaining to people it doesn’t work that way.
Newark was a tough city. You didn’t have to look for trouble; it found you the second you got up out of bed in the morning. I think my parents knew we
needed to get out of there. The problem was we didn’t have any money. My dad was working so hard, but it was never enough to feed and clothe us and pay the rent. He used to drive U-Haul trucks to and from New Jersey and New York for extra cash, and he was just tired all the time.
Then, in 1982, when I was ten years old, my dad came home one day and said, “We’re moving.” He packed me, my mother,
my sisters, Ayesha and Lateefah, and my little brother, Jamal, into his Toyota Corolla, and we drove to Fort Stewart in Hinesville, Georgia. I cried all the way there. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave my friends.
And yet, that move was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I was in trouble all the time in Newark. I was hanging out with the wrong kids.
If it wasn’t
for us moving around so much, then I wouldn’t be the people person I am today. I really believe that. I had to learn how to make new friends, adjust to new places. What if I had to grow up my whole life in the projects of Newark, New Jersey? I would have never seen any white people, Jewish people, Spanish people. Because my
dad moved so much, it forced me to learn to live with all kinds of kids.
Hinesville, Georgia, was nothing like Newark. We’re living on the army base there and it was very, very Southern. We walked to school from the base, and one day I met this kid named Ronnie Philpot. He’s a little guy, and he’s very dark skinned, darker than me, so we start ranking on each other about how black we are. He’s my first friend in Georgia and I’m going to be his bodyguard. His mother
had died and kids started messing with him. They’d say stuff like, “Hey Ronnie, the parent-teacher conference is tonight, too bad your mom can’t be there.”
I heard that and I was going off the wall. It was just so cruel. This kid is teasing Ronnie about his mom and I shove him and say, “After school. The basketball courts. You and me. I’m going to mess you up.” The kid knows he’s got to show
up because news of the fight is all over the school. Plus, I knew where he lived. He had to go home past the courts unless he went the long way around. So I’m waiting, and he shows up, and the first thing I do is smack him in the head.
My mentality was always to strike first. So I punch the kid in the face and then it’s on, and I just start beating him. He can’t do anything. All the kids are
there watching, so now I’m The Man. I’m the bully in the school and everyone knows it.
My father isn’t happy with me because I’m goofing around in class and I’m still getting in trouble all the time. He’s taking his belt to me just about every day because I keep screwing up. Finally he says, “If I get one more note from school, I’m going to mess you up.” I knew he was serious.
But I can’t help
it. I’m Shaquille, the funny guy, the bully, The Man. I was so self-conscious about my size, goofing off was the only way I knew how to fit in. So one day I bring my water bottle to school and I’ve got these tissues my mom put in my backpack, and I start making spitballs and throwing them at the blackboard. I get one big old glob and I fire it and it just misses the teacher. So the teacher
whips
around and says, “Who did that?” Everyone is cracking up except for me. I’m sitting there real serious.
So class is over and this kid rats me out. He’s an officer’s kid. I can’t believe it. I’m shocked. So I go to the principal’s office and I get suspended for three days. I know my father is going to beat the tar out of me so I grab this kid and I tell him, “Three o’clock.” I figure I’m going
to go home and get an ass whupping anyway, but first I’m gonna give one of my own. I’m gonna kill that kid.
School is over and I’m waiting for him. Three o’clock, four o’clock, and he doesn’t come, but I’m still waiting for him on the corner. By then the other kids have given up and gone home. Finally the kid comes out of the school around five o’clock. He’s looking around all nervous and then
he sees me. I start chasing him. He doesn’t realize that I’m pretty quick for a big kid. I track him down and I start punching him and hitting him. I’m kicking him in the ribs so hard he starts having some kind of seizure.
All of a sudden I’m real scared. This kid is foaming at the mouth and his eyes are rolling back in his head and I’m thinking,
Oh no, I really have killed him
. I’m terrified.
One of the officers from the base is driving by and he sees the kid lying on the ground, so he stops the car and runs over and says, “What the hell are you doing?” He runs back to the car and puts a pencil in the kid’s mouth because the kid’s having this epileptic seizure. The man calls 911. So the cops come and the ambulance comes and now I’m really in trouble. The cops drive me back to the base,
and they find my father and they blast him for having such a rotten kid. They come down on my dad pretty hard. I’ve embarrassed my father
and
I’ve pissed him off. I’m thinking,
This isn’t good
.
My father beat me silly for that. Every time he hit me he said, “You idiot! You could have killed that kid. You’d be in jail the rest of your life. How many times have I told you? Be a thinker! Be a leader!”
Then he’d get mad all over again and whack me some more.
I didn’t care, because I was terrified about what I did to that kid.
For a long time afterward when I turned out the light, all I could see was his face with his eyes rolling back in his head.
That was it for me. From that day on, I was done being a bully.
Now, I know my dad sounds like a violent guy. I’m sure people have a problem with
it, but they shouldn’t. My father made me who I am. He always told me, “You are going to be better than me.” He did some stuff when he was young. The story he always told me was his friend had a piggy bank, and Sarge stole the piggy bank and broke it, and when his father found out, he tried to kill him. He told me that story a lot. It really stuck with him.
Everything Sarge did to me was for
a reason. Now, would I do that to my own kids? Absolutely not. Never. But my kids are coming from a completely different place. They don’t live in the projects. They haven’t been poor a day in their lives. They aren’t coming from the same place as their daddy Shaun did.
Phil Harrison is a good man. He raised me, he loved me, he challenged me. He knows how much I love and respect him.
People
like to tell me I need to make peace with my biological father. Those people should mind their own business. I didn’t hear anything from that guy for years until I started dunking basketballs and becoming famous. Then he’s on the
Ricki Lake Show
telling everyone he misses me and how come I won’t have anything to do with him, and he wants me to meet my half brother.
Maybe at some point I would
have been willing to see him, but I didn’t like how he came at me. On a television program? Really? It was very disrespectful. He’s from New Jersey, and all my relatives are there. He could have easily called one of the cousins and said, “Hey, I want to hang out with my son, have him call me.” I probably would have done that, but on the
Ricki Lake Show?
We’re too far down the road now. I think
it would be awfully disrespectful to the man who made me who I am, Philip Harrison, who raised me from the time I was two years old, to turn around to some other guy and say, “Hey, Daddy!” It’s not happening.
One time, when I got to the pros and started playing for the
Orlando Magic, they told me my biological father was at the game and he was waiting on me. When I heard that, I ducked out the
back door. That’s not usually my style, but I had nothing to say to Joe Toney. Sarge finally went over to the dude’s house and told him to leave me alone.
My mom wanted to protect me from all that stuff. She loved me so much, and all she wanted for me was to be happy. When things got bad, she’d always tell me, “Hey, you’re going to be fine.” My mom and my grandmother were the ones who kept me
smiling and believing.
When I got into trouble, my mom kind of stayed back. She let my dad handle the discipline. Even though he wasn’t my real father, he paid the bills, took care of the house. He loved my mother to death. There was no question about that. He was crazy about her.
We stayed in Georgia for a couple of years, but being from a military family, we knew we wouldn’t be there long.
The next move we made was in 1984, to Wildflecken, Germany. I didn’t want to go there, either, so I cried all the way to Europe.
It didn’t take long for me to find some kids to get in trouble with in Germany. At that point of my life I didn’t want to be Shaquille. The kids there started calling me JC, but it’s not what you think. I wasn’t no Jesus Christ. JC stood for Just Cool.
I was about
thirteen years old and I started wanting stuff, but I had no money. My father said, “I’m not buying you anything unless you work for it. So you go out and get a job or you are going to work for me.”
I applied for a job at the Burger King on the base in Germany. I lived on A Street, so I had to walk up a couple of hills to get there, but I didn’t care because I wanted my own money so I could buy
the Air Jordans I had my eye on.
The idea of a job seemed good but I didn’t like it. They made me do all the jobs nobody else would do, like mop, clean, wash the counters. I wanted to flip burgers, run the cash register, talk to all the customers, but they handed me a mop and told me to wipe up all the ketchup on the floor. I said, “Screw this,” and I quit.
But now I’ve got to go home and tell
my daddy, and he says, “You’re not going to be a quitter. Now you will work for me.” Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good.
So now all of a sudden I’m in charge of my brother and my sisters. I’ve got to get them up in the morning, get them dressed, walk them to school, then get myself to school. After that, I had to pick them up, get them home, feed them. I became an expert at grilled cheese and Top
Ramen, the hard noodles you boil in water. I had to feed them, get them going on their homework, make sure the house was clean. My mom had taken a job to help pay our bills, so I was Mr. Mom.
It was a lot of work. My dad warned me I better do a good job or he was going to whip my ass. In fact, I think the reason I’m so good with kids today is because of all the time I spent taking care of my
siblings. Even now I can look at a kid and know what it takes to make him or her smile. I had to make up games for my younger siblings to keep them happy. At night, when there was a bad storm, I knew Jamal would be crawling into bed with me. He was afraid of lightning and he was sure I’d protect him from anything.
I tried. I danced for them, sang for them, made them giggle.
I also would beat
up anyone who gave them a hard time.
My dad didn’t pay me any money, but if I needed a new pair of shoes, he’d get them for me. I was so excited when I finally got my Air Jordans, but they only went up to size 13, and by the time Sarge bought them for me I was already a size 15. They were so expensive I didn’t dare tell him they didn’t fit me. I walked around wearing shoes two sizes too small.
My feet were killing me. Had to do it, dawg. If you had Jordans, you rated.
Not long after we moved to Germany, I met this white guy named Mitch Riles and he looked exactly like Larry Bird. He had the long hair and the same ugly nose, and he could shoot his ass off.
So he’s got the Bird thing down, so now I’ve got to get the Magic Johnson routine down. That means I’ve got to learn how to dribble,
make the no-look pass, all that stuff. We’re out there every day
playing Magic vs. Bird, Celtics vs. Lakers, and I’m learning skills that big men don’t ever show. I’m developing some moves.
I’m well over six feet tall at this point, but I’m still awkward, still haven’t grown into my body. My footwork is good, and I’ve got my “Magic” moves, but I can’t jump that well and I can’t dunk. I’m beginning
to wonder if it’s ever going to happen for me.
So one day the officers on the base are all excited because this basketball coach from Louisiana State University was coming to put on a clinic. His name was Dale Brown and I had never heard of him, but I liked him right away. He had a lot of energy and his message was “Discipline and hard work are both great gifts. If you use them properly, you
can be anything you want to be.”
I wrote that down and memorized it. I went up to him afterward and asked him if he had any drills for me. I explained that even though I was big and tall, I was clumsy and had trouble jumping. He was very nice.