Tonight HBO will air part one of a two-part documentary on Shaquille O'Neal. Had a chance encounter with the man a few years back. While it may not be as much fun as the time I escorted Michael Jordan through the hallways of the Metrodome when the Chicago Bulls played the Minnesota Timberwolves for the first time ever. He ran into me and asked how to get to the court, so I walked him all the way through the halls, down the stairs which normally led to the Twins dugout, and onto the court level. It didn't strike me as to how cool this event was until I told my brother Rudy about it and he was more than slightly amazed. But my Shaq story is a good one too. To those of you who are fans of my writing, here's some more.
SHAQ AND ME
The Big Shamrock. Diesel. The Big Leprechaun. Shaq Daddy. Manny Shaquiao. Mayor McShaq and MY personal favorite, Shaq Fu. These are just a few of the two-to-three dozen nicknames, many of them self-assigned, which identify one Shaquille O'Neal. The NBA Hall of Famer is known by many names to many people, this is undeniable. But what does this have to do with yours truly? Well, let me tell you a little tale.
Now, THIS brush with greatness occurred only 24 hours later and in the same room as my blog about NHL Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy.
On April 22, 2003 I was once again at the Signature Air commuter terminal near the St. Paul/Minneapolis International Airport. The Los Angeles Lakers were in town having just lost to the hometown Minnesota Timberwolves in game two of their opening-round playoff series.
The Minnesota Wild, the heroes of the previous night, were in Denver for game 7 against the Avalanche after I helped load them onto their private aircraft the night before. While keeping half an eye and ear on the progress of the Wolves/Lakers contest I had the break room 13" tv tuned to the hockey game. The Wild had scored late in period 3 to force the contest to sudden-death overtime. So I'm jazzed about that fact to begin with. The basketball game has now ended and the Lakers will be at the Signature terminal within the next hour.
Meanwhile, overtime has now begun at the Pepsi Center in Denver. I'm watching with great anticipation when just over three minutes into the first overtime period Andrew Brunette takes a pass from Sergei Zholtok and pushes a shot past Patrick Roy and the Wild had won their first-ever playoff series. I was ecstatic! I was watching on tv as I was on the phone with my late wife Bryn, I'm screaming into the phone, jumping up down in the break room, totally forgetting about the impending Laker team arrival. My staff hears me and I quickly run down the hall to let them know that their supervisor has indeed not lost his mind. But we've got about 30 minutes to kill anyhow, so we're good on time. I just have to get refocused, and that's what I did.
The Los Angeles Lakers who then included Rick Fox, the late Kobe Bryant and head coach Phil Jackson entered the high-ceilinged room for screening prior to their boarding the private jet back to the City of Angels. About 10 minutes after the screenings began the lights in the room went out. Now, keep in mind that this room has absolutely no windows and the long hallway which leads into it is dimly lit at best. The room went silent immediately. It was so dark that one could not see one's own hand pass in front of one's own face. I suddenly hear a deep voice chuckling to my left near the doorway and one of the room's few light switches. I believe that I recognize the person to whom this chuckling belongs. Remembering that I am the supervisor in charge of this whole exercise I decided I should speak up.
I yelled, "Shaq?!" There was a short pause followed by a very deep-voiced, "Yes?" My reply was, "Can you not do that, please?" And sounding like a 7-year-old who has been mildly scolded he replies, "Okay." A few people in the room giggled and then the lights started to come back on at a painfully-slow pace. When they reached full power I recommenced the screening process along with my small staff in order to finish this process as expeditiously as possible.
When the big man himself got in front of me for screening I was fairly certain that he wouldn't be able to link me to the audio request which I had made a few minutes prior. Well, at least I was HOPING that would be the case, trust me. At this time he was approximately 7'1" tall weighing about 350 pounds. I HAD to hope this because having just lost a playoff game by 28 points to the local cagers I worried that he may decide to squash me like a bug. Heck, I was giving away 12 inches in height and 135 pounds. Thankfully this did not happen and he made his way to the exit and out to the waiting jet.
The Lakers went on to actually lose game 3 and then they began to flat-out abuse the Timberwolves over the following three games, winning the series four games to two. So on consecutive evenings I got to interact with two future hall of famers, one in the NHL and the other in the NBA. Not a bad week, actually.
Shaq has gone on to become a bigger celebrity since his career ended and he can be seen hawking products from Pepsi, Taco Bell, Icy Hot, numerous Gold Bond products, home security systems, computer printers, Papa John's pizza, and General Insurance where he sometimes appears with a cartoon general who used to appear with a penguin as his sidekick. Why a penguin, I do not know.
When I see Shaq on television these days I often think back to this one moment in time when I asked the man known as Shaq Fu to please not act the fool and lived to tell about it.
It's not the Greatest Story Ever Told, but it's MY story.
........I'm just sayin'
