November 11, 2011

My Father Beat Me, Shaq Writes in Book: In a new book written with Jackie MacMullen, Shaquille O'Neal writes about enduring a childhood of physical abuse from his father, Phillip Harrison, a Army staff sergeant. "Physically abused him, beat the living daylights out of him at every turn," MacMullen said. "His father came home from work one night, Shaq is sitting there, he punches Shaq in the face. Shaq says, 'Well, what's that for?' [Harrison] said, 'We're going to see this guy play basketball. ... He plays in the NBA. You're messing around, you're goofing around, you're not serious about your game. This guy makes $15 million and he can't play at all. And we're going to go see him.' Punches him again and takes him to go see Jon Koncak play basketball and says, 'See, if you applied yourself, you could be in the NBA making $15 million.'"

posted by rcade to basketball at 09:41 AM - 2 comments

I guess that's one child rearing method -- beat the crap out of your kids hoping it forces them to reach their potential. It's sad how kids who are abused by their parents love them unconditionally anyway.

posted by bperk at 12:38 PM on November 11, 2011

I'm not saying it's right, but that Koncak contract was annoying,

posted by yerfatma at 03:28 PM on November 11, 2011

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