Free Shaq Uncut: My Story by Shaquille O’Neal, Jackie Macmullan Page B

Stanley and Chris gone, now I really was the Big Man onCampus. I spent a lot of time talking with Bo Bahnsen, who worked for LSU and whose job it was to make sure I wasn’t breaking any rules that could get us in trouble with the NCAA.
    Bo was cool. I gave him a run for his money. I nicknamedhim “No Bo,” because that was my answer every time he thought I was up to something.
    The NCAA was on my case a lot. Everything was under suspicion. They wondered how I got my shitbox Bronco car. They checked my parents’ credit and asked, “How can he afford it?”
    What they didn’t know was I bought that car used. I paid $5,000 for it, and it didn’t even have an engine. It cost me another $1,000to get one. I had what they call a balloon payment. I put a thousand down from my Pell Grant, which was completely legal, and I mortgaged the other $5,000. I paid $50 a month, and at the end I was going to have a huge payment due, but I figured by that point I’d be in the NBA.
    Even though I didn’t have any money, I wanted people on campus to think I did. I was The Man and I had to act the part,so I took a phone from my dorm room and I put a phony wire underneath my Bronco and pretended I had a car phone. I used to drive around pretending to talk to everybody on it. Of course someone saw me with it and called Bo, and he came down and I had to show him it was phony. “Don’t tell the ladies,” I told Bo, giving him a wink. He promised he wouldn’t.
    The other thing I did was when I got myPell Grant, which was about $2,500, I’d take it in five one-hundred-dollar bills and the rest in ones. Then I’d put it in one fat bankroll and drive around campus with this big wad of cash. It looked like it was a hell of a lot more than it was, because most of those bills were Washingtons, not Benjamins. But nobody knew that because I’d wrap that wad with the big bills on the outside. I’d pull outmy stash and wave it around and say, “Should I stay, or go pro?” Naturally, Bo had to come and see me about that, too.
    “Bo,” I’d tell him again, “I ain’t done nothing. It’s all an act.”
    The truth is, it could have been a lot worse and Bo knew it. I kept up academically. He didn’t have to jump on me for that. He dealt with all sorts of athletes who couldn’t be bothered. He told me one of hisathletes gave up school for Lent.
    A bunch of us on the team got to be friendly with this guy who owned a bar called The Tiger. We’d go there a lot and hang out and have fun. Once in a while, I’d jump behind the counter and become the bartender. That prompted another phone call and another visit from Bo, who was making sure I didn’t have an illegal job and I wasn’t drinking any alcohol, sinceI was underage.
    No Bo. No on both counts.
    To this day I still don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. I’ve never been arrested, either, although I was “detained” once in college.
    LSU had always been a football school. The football players walked around saying it. But we were winning a lot more than they were, so we walked around saying, “This is a basketball school.”
    We all used to mess around withthe same girls, so you knew that was going to be a problem eventually. There was this one girl named Tiffany Broussard, and everyone loved her. She was bragging about being involved with a football player, and I was trying to be with her, so I said, “Screw the football guys. Check their record. See what we’ve done. Basketball is king on this campus.”
    The football player Tiffany liked was AnthonyMarshall. He was about six foot three or four, a fairly big guy—unless he was standing next to me. So Anthony wanted to talk to me about what I said to Tiffany.
    We all lived in Broussard Hall. I’m in Anthony’s room, and he’s got about four or five of his boys in there with him. We start arguing about Tiffany, and they start to gather around me, so I follow my motto—hit first, ask questions later—andI pop Anthony Marshall in the