Wraps Are Off : O’Neal Hasn’t Let Success on Court and in Record Studio Affect His Winning Attitude

Once, Shaquille O’Neal was a knucklehead.

It was fun, too.

It was more than that; it was a calling. He and a friend formed a club with their own salute: knuckles to the forehead, irreverence personified.

Shaq’s life was water parks and video arcades. Once, far from the watchful eyes of Sarge and Big Lucille, his parents, he tried bungee jumping, although he points out he was sensible about it. “I tied the rope around my waist,” he says, “not my ankle.” It never occurred to him that a 7-foot-1, 300-pounder might be taxing the system and, indeed, he lived to tell the tale.

He wants to try sky diving next.

That gasp was from Leonard Armato, his Century City agent, thinking of eight figures of annual earning power augering into the earth.

O’Neal can hear Leonard now: You can’t do that, Shaq! You’ve got a contract! You’ve got sponsors!

Shaq is a conglomerate.

He can’t do this. He can’t say that. His life is interviews and appearances. He has to watch what he says.

When Armato signed O’Neal, he actually sat him down for a mock interview with Randi Hall of Prime Ticket and taught him the basics of modern image projection: be courteous, be humble, stick to the script.

O’Neal picked it right up. A friend says if he hears Shaq call himself a cross between Bambi and the Terminator once more, he’s going to gag.

O’Neal has already earned $16 million, according to Fortune Magazine, a figure surpassed by one basketball player, Michael Jordan, and never dreamed of by any rookie. But it can be a drag, too.

The populace pursues O’Neal everywhere with slips of paper. Fans dangle them from high walls with fishing tackle. Cops turn on their sirens and pull him over so he can sign.

Everyone wants something. He doesn’t know whom to trust and is at ease only with a small coterie of friends, plus his family. If there were some way to sign 250 million autographs and send one to every American, he might be able to get on with his life. Short of that, he’s 21, and if not a prisoner of his fame, he certainly is its servant.

“Oh, it’s definitely a hard life,” says Dennis Scott, his Orlando Magic teammate and buddy.

“We sit back and we talk about it all the time. But he definitely wouldn’t trade it in for the whole world. He loves what he’s doing. He loves the attention.

“I just think some people don’t take the time to understand that he’s still human, too. I think that’s the only part sometimes that may get to him. But other than that, he tries to enjoy himself as much as he can.”

Shaq never complains. It comes with the territory, he says manfully. He’s used to it, it’s been like this since he was a prep All-American in San Antonio, etc.

You may have seen Shaq ripping down backboards in commercials and real life or rapping on Arsenio, but, in interviews, he’s so subdued, you want to check for a pulse. He whispers. He says he’s “chillin’.” You’re afraid he’s gone too far and is close to suspended animation.

Like great performers, O’Neal measures himself according to his audience. A large newspaper gets a polite response. A national magazine putting him on the cover gets a tour of his condo and a ride in one of his rolling sound studios. Arsenio Hall gets Shaq rapping with Fu Schnickens, laying out how truly great he is.

Or as Shaq told Alan Richman of Gentlemen’s Quarterly, “I got four versions of the smile. I got the $1-million, the $2-million, the $4.6-million, and, if you’re real good, the $8.8-million.”

Try as they might to package the Shaq, however, they can’t quite get him into the box.

The knucklehead lives.

He is asked about his rivalry with Charlotte’s Alonzo Mourning. He denies feeling any such thing. He says Alonzo is a nice guy. He says the media is trying to start something.

The interview ends. The reporter clicks off his tape recorder. Shaq asks him if he has any kids and gives him a copy of his new rap CD, “Shaq Diesel.”

The reporter is on his way out of O’Neal’s hotel room.

Says Shaq, smiling: “I don’t worry about Alonzo Mourning.”

That night Shaq gets 23 points as the Magic wins in Portland. Then on to Seattle. A writer, noting his bad game there last season, asks if he has trouble with Michael Cage. Shaq says he doesn’t.

The writer starts to leave.

Says Shaq, smiling: “Michael Cage?”

*

I’m a role model / I’m a role figure / I ask myself / Can I get any bigger?

From “Outstanding,” by Shaquille O’Neal

Whether he likes it or not, the answer is yes.

Awesome as he is, O’Neal is only warming up.

As a rookie with rudimentary post moves and little confidence in his shot, he averaged 23 points.

In his second season, improved all around despite suggestions to the contrary by opponents in need of hope--hello, Hornets--he leads the NBA at 29 points per game, a pace that would make him the first center to win a scoring title since Bob McAdoo in 1976.

When O’Neal joined the Magic, the hard-bitten Scott Skiles said time would tell if he had a work ethic to match his gifts.

Said Skiles: “That’s what your Magic Johnsons do, your Larry Birds, your Julius Ervings, Michael Jordans.

“And then there’s your Darryl Dawkinses.”

Time has told.

“How can you complain about a guy who can do the things he can do and still keep his head on straight?” Skiles says now.

“There’s a whole different kind of player coming in the league now. None of ‘em come in with the same kind of eagerness and hunger that guys did a long time ago, but he certainly has a way, way above average attitude.

“The guy’s played 100 NBA games. I think he’s going to keep getting better as the season goes on, and his third, fourth year in the league, he’s going to be very, very hard to handle.”

What used to be the big three is now four--Shaq plus old standbys Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson.

Old standbys don’t like moving over, so O’Neal is up to his neck in . . . let’s call it competition.

Ewing, who won’t talk to reporters between games, was so upset at being outpolled by O’Neal in last year’s All-Star voting, Knick Coach Pat Riley felt obliged to defend him, calling it “ridiculous.”

Riley then played Ewing more in the All-Star game, angering O’Neal’s already gruff father, Sgt. Phillip Harrison, who railed about it afterward.

Robinson, Mr. Nice Guy, says O’Neal has “pretty much the same type of game as he did last year. . . . I don’t think he has some of the abilities a Ewing or Olajuwon does.”

Of the four, only Olajuwon, who is also represented by Armato, has been nice.

“Hakeem’s a class act,” O’Neal says. “If anyone is going to compare me to a great center, I’d love to be compared to him.”

Then there’s Mourning.

Nearing greatness in his own right, the 6-9 Mourning is the smallest and fiercest of the top centers. He is said to regard the gifted and charismatic O’Neal with the resentment of a poor cousin for a rich relative.

Hornet executives, picking up the cry, claimed they would have drafted Alonzo over O’Neal and asked if Shaq is as committed to basketball as he is to rapping.

“They made a couple of comments, about if they had the first pick, some silly comment,” O’Neal says. “But we all know if they’d had the first pick, they’d have taken me.”

Says Dennis Scott: “I know Alonzo very well. We grew up in the same area. I tease him. I’d say, ‘Big fellow’s 7-1, 300 pounds. You’re 240. He’s agile, can put the ball on the floor. He’ll dunk on you. He’ll turn around and J (make a jump shot) on you.’

“I think now he’s just got too many weapons for Alonzo.

“Alonzo just laughs. He says, ‘I’m gonna come out, he better bring it all.’ ”

No problem.

That’s what O’Neal does, bring it all every night. Tonight, it’s to the Sports Arena, which is nearly sold out. In two seasons, O’Neal has played in only four games that didn’t sell out.

He regrets only that he won’t have more time to chill in L.A. Last summer, when O’Neal was in town to make his movie, “Blue Chips,” he had one of his cars, a Mercedes, shipped out so he could travel in style. It’s still here, waiting for him. O’Neal loves L.A. and plans to summer here next year, too.

“The thing I love about L.A.,” he says, “there’s lots of superstars walking around. People see you, they just go, ‘Hi.’

“In a small town like Orlando, they see who you are and they’re just amazed. In L.A., you’ve got Arnold Schwarzenegger walking down the street, Sylvester Stallone . . . “

Orlando does have Wet ‘n Wild and its own Universal Studios, where Shaq especially favors the Psycho house (“They let me go in there and chill.”)

It’s still a wonderful life, however bizarre.

Bring ‘em all on.

Patrick?

David?

Alonzo?

Hakeem?

ELMORE SPENCER?

It’s enough to crack a young knucklehead up.