Shaquille O’Neal Visits a Forgotten School Court – What He Builds There Will Change Lives!
In the heart of Chicago’s Southside, Benjamin Harris Elementary’s basketball court told a story of faded dreams. Rusted hoops stood over cracked concrete—a silent witness to thousands of games and countless hopes deferred. But on an unseasonably warm spring morning in 2025, that was about to change. Something extraordinary was about to happen, and it all started with a boy named Noah Thompson.
Noah, twelve, was already on the court before the morning bell, as he was every day. The son of a single mother working two jobs, Noah found solace in the game, even though the court was barely playable. His worn basketball bounced against the uneven surface, the rhythm echoing across the empty schoolyard.
What Noah didn’t know was that someone had been watching—not just him, but all the kids who still believed in this broken court enough to play here. Today, that someone was finally stepping out of the shadows.
A black SUV pulled up quietly beside the school. The figure who stepped out was unmistakable: seven feet tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in jeans, a hoodie, and a snapback hat. Even with the cap pulled low, Noah recognized him instantly. He’d seen that smile, that playful swagger, in countless YouTube highlights and commercials. There was only one person who moved with that easy confidence, that larger-than-life presence: Shaquille O’Neal.
Shaq didn’t speak at first. He picked up Noah’s basketball, spinning it in his huge hands. His eyes took in everything—the dangerous cracks, the bent rims, the faded lines. But he wasn’t seeing what was. He was seeing what could be.
“You’re up early, big man,” Shaq finally said, his deep voice warm and booming as he bounced the ball back to Noah with a gentle flick. “Every morning, sir,” Noah managed, heart pounding. “How many others?” Shaq asked. “Dozens, Mr. O’Neal. After school, this place is packed. We take turns—three games going at once.” He gestured at the broken court.
Shaq nodded, his expression serious for a moment. “Reminds me of where I started,” he said. “Not the bright lights, not the big arenas. Just concrete, a hoop, and a dream.” By now, more kids were arriving. Whispers started. Phones came out. The legend of what was happening at Benjamin Harris Elementary was already spreading.
Shaq turned to the growing crowd. “What if we could make this court into something special? Not just new hoops and fresh paint. Something that could change lives?”
Noah felt his heart race. Before he could respond, Principal Diana Martinez, who’d spent years fighting for funding to renovate the court, appeared at the door. Teachers stopped in their tracks. Shaq’s presence electrified the air.
Ms. Martinez stepped forward, voice trembling with hope and exhaustion. “We’ve tried everything. The school district has no funding. Private donors want newer, bigger projects. But this court… it’s not just about basketball.”
“It’s about survival,” Shaq finished for her, his tone gentle but firm. “About giving kids a place to belong, to dream, to become more than what the world expects.”
He looked around at the crowd. “I know something about that.”
He pulled out his phone. “Tony? Get the team down here. Full crew. Call the Foundation. Tell them Project Phoenix is launching early.” Then he turned back to the kids. “This court, it’s not going to be just any court. We’re going to build something this community has never seen before. But first—I want to hear your stories. All of them. Because what we build here, it needs to come from you.”
For the next hour, as the school day start time came and went, stories poured out. Shaq listened. Really listened. To Charlotte Thompson, the eighth-grade girls’ team captain who organized her own league. To retired coach Benjamin White, who still mentored kids for free. To parents who worried about their children’s safety. Each story added a layer to Shaq’s vision.
Noah finally found the courage to ask, “Mr. O’Neal, what exactly are you planning to build?”
Shaq’s smile was wide and infectious. “Something that starts with basketball, but goes way beyond it. You know what I learned? The game is just the beginning. It’s what the game teaches—discipline, teamwork, resilience. That’s what changes lives.”
He walked to center court, the crowd forming a circle around him. “This court will have the best surface, the best equipment, the best lights. But around it, we’re building dreams—a learning center for homework help and college prep, a tech lab for sports science and analytics, a community space for meetings and events, and training facilities for all kinds of careers in sports.”
The silence was absolute. Even the youngest kids seemed to understand the magnitude of what was being proposed.
“But here’s the deal,” Shaq continued, his voice taking on the steel that made him a champion. “This only works if you’re all in. Because what we’re building isn’t a gift. It’s an opportunity. And opportunities only matter if you’re ready to work for them.”
Black SUVs began arriving. Shaq’s team spilled out, ready to turn vision into reality. But before the work began, Shaq gathered everyone for one last thing. “You know why I noticed this court? Because every morning, I saw a kid who showed up before sunrise to practice, rain or shine, on a broken court. That’s what greatness is made of. That’s what this community is made of.”
Three months later, Phoenix Rise stood ready for its grand opening. Where cracked concrete once told a story of neglect, a gleaming facility now promised a future of possibility. The night before the official opening, Shaq invited Noah and his mother for a private tour.
“Why us?” Noah whispered.
Shaq knelt beside him, his massive hand gentle on Noah’s shoulder. “Because you never stopped believing. That’s how you change the world.”
The next morning, the community gathered. Shaq, dressed in a suit but wearing sneakers, took the podium. “What you see here isn’t just a building. It’s proof of what happens when we see possibility instead of problems. When we work together.”
The day ended with a community celebration. Food trucks lined the streets. Kids played on the new court. As the sun set, Shaq watched Noah teach a younger kid how to dribble. The torch was already being passed.
Phoenix Rise became more than a building, more than a court. It became a beacon—a testament to the power of belief, the strength of community, and the endless possibilities that arise when we dare to dream bigger than our circumstances. And it all started with Shaquille O’Neal, a forgotten court, and a boy who never stopped believing.
Shaq enters the Hall: Decades of dominance on and off court
There will never be another Shaquille O’Neal. SI looks back at his legendary basketball career, which spans three decades and three generations of NBA superstars.
Way back in 1994, Shaquille O’Neal, who will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday, was asked about Knicks center Patrick Ewing.
“He’s still a great player, even at 31,” O’Neal said, according to a Sports Illustrated story. “I know for a fact that I won’t be playing at 31.”
For O’Neal, who was then just 21 and in his second season with the Magic, a decade surely felt like a century. The 1992 No. 1 overall pick was already one of the world’s most popular athletes and handsomely-paid celebrity endorsers. The supersized center was also well on his way to multi-platform fame, thanks to a platinum Shaq Diesel rap record and an upcoming Blue Chips big screen debut. As O’Neal openly shared his vision of going head-to-head with Arnold Schwarzenegger in a blockbuster movie, his hardwood battles with Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson might have seemed like a temporary means to an end, or an opening act before O’Neal moved on to his next phase of world domination.
As it turned out, of course, O’Neal played well past the age of 31, and he might have made it to 41 if not for a laundry list of nagging injuries. He had played so long, defying his own prediction and the skepticism of many critics who long held that he wasn’t sufficiently committed to the sport, that he had quite literally spanned generations: When O’Neal finally retired in 2011, at the age of 39, Ewing’s son, Patrick Jr., was a 26-year-old center for the Hornets.
Over 19 seasons, O’Neal won four championships, claimed three Finals MVP awards, earned 15 All-Star selections and played for six franchises, all without ever stepping away from the game for a mid-career “retirement.” For more than two decades straight, dating back to his All-American days at LSU, O’Neal towered over the game in a transformational fashion: Rival players took to fouling him maliciously and flopping in an effort to slow him down, rival coaches fouled him intentionally if double- and triple-teaming him didn’t work, rival executives sought out 7-footers in hopes of countering him come playoff time and rival franchises chased his services with lucrative free agency offers and enticing trade packages.
When he finally stepped away from the game, O’Neal famously dubbed himself the “Most Dominant Ever,” and indeed his combination of size, strength, mobility and skills was and remains without comparison. But O’Neal’s staying power is almost as remarkable: He took the NBA’s reins when Michael Jordan decided to play baseball and didn’t step away until a year after “The Decision”; he teamed with (deep breath) Anfernee Hardaway, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Steve Nash, LeBron James, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce; he battled Jordan’s Bulls, Olajuwon’s Rockets, Ewing’s Knicks, Robinson’s Spurs, then Duncan’s Spurs, Allen Iverson’s Sixers, Jason Kidd’s Nets, Reggie Miller’s Pacers and Dirk Nowitzki’s Mavericks; and held on long enough to rank seventh all-time in points, 14th in rebounds and eighth in blocks despite missing significant portions of his prime years due to injuries. After buying his early music on cassettes and his movies on VHS tapes, O’Neal’s longtime fans were first informed of his retirement announcement on Tout, a “real-time mobile video publishing platform.”
The key to O’Neal’s longevity and, in turn, the defining characteristic of his legacy is that he never listened to those who suggested he needed to choose. Indeed, from the very beginning, O’Neal relished in living large and having it all, pursuing his many non-basketball interests regardless of the flak he might receive along the way.
With that in mind, here’s a look back at O’Neal’s storied career, as told in the pages of Sports Illustrated over the past 25 years. From the very beginning, it was clear O’Neal was a monster on the court and a thoroughly original personality off of it. What’s striking, by the end of this trip back through memory lane, is how little O’Neal’s core personality traits seem to have changed and how far ahead of his time he was. Although O’Neal once reached back in history to dub himself “The Big Aristotle,” his insatiable desire to expand past the traditional boundaries of a professional athlete made him far more futuristic than ancient, a digital pioneer in an analog landscape that struggled to process his earthshaking presence.
John W. McDonough for Sports Illustrated
1991
From the very beginning, O’Neal inspired both awe and fear. Curry Kirkpatrick’s 1991 cover story profile of O’Neal—“Shack Attack”—touches on both themes while labeling its subject “basketball’s future.”
Take, for example, LSU coach Dale Brown’s first meeting with his star.
Long before O’Neal, who was born in Newark, N.J., went to high school for two seasons in Texas, he was already prominent on LSU coach Dale Brown’s wish list. Five years ago, during a European tour of coaching clinics, Brown came across the then 6′ 6″ Shaquille at an Army base in Wildflecken, West Germany, where his father was then stationed.
“What rank are you, soldier?” Brown asked.
“No rank. I’m 13 years old,” O’Neal answered.
“Uh, your dad around?” asked Brown.
By the time Brown was able to get O’Neal in a basketball uniform, destruction seemed inevitable and legends like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were already paying their respects.
Three times this season the 7′ 1″, 295-pound O’Neal has come a breath away from his ultimate goal of ripping a basketball goal asunder. It’s not just shattering the glass backboard that he has in mind—that’s child’s play, although he hasn’t actually broken one yet. We’re talking bringing down the whole works—the net, the rim, the backboard, the basket stanchion—everything! He almost did it in mid-November in an exhibition game against the Newcastle (Australia) Falcons. On that occasion everyone in LSU’s Maravich Assembly Center gave thanks that, after O’Neal’s two-handed dunk not only moved the base of the basket support a good five inches but also broke the chain anchoring it to the floor, he wisely let go of the rim so the entire structure wouldn’t topple over. “The night I get one, you’ll really see some dancin’,” O’Neal says.
“Don’t call Shaquille the next anybody,” warned Abdul-Jabbar, who later that night taught O’Neal the basics of the sky hook, which he has yet to master. “Let him be the first Shaquille.”
As O’Neal rampaged through the SEC, opponents struggled to devise ways to stop him, prompting Franz Lidz to painstakingly catalogue their many strategies. Along the way, Lidz encountered plenty of apprehension.
“What fascinates me is how people behave,” says 6′ 9″, 220-pound Warren Kidd, one of the best players in the Ohio Valley Conference. “And how the mind works.” Still, he hasn’t yet decided how he’ll psych out O’Neal. “Talking trash won’t upset him,” he allows. “You’ve got to straight up face him.”
Kidd’s face job won’t necessarily be face-to-face. “I’ll play Shaq with my back to him,” he says. “Maybe that’ll mess him up.”
A little reverse psychology.
The Southeastern Louisiana Lions may ambush O’Neal. “I’m sending my four biggest men after him,” says coach Don Wilson, sounding like Mao. “They’re my Gang of Four.”
Last season O’Neal left Southeastern Louisiana in ruin. The damage included 28 points, 15 rebounds, six rejections, a 117–68 drubbing. Blame poor intelligence reports: Some Lions had anticipated a Buddha-like figure. “I thought Shaq would be fat,” says 6′ 9″ Darryl (Ice) Jones, Southeastern Louisiana’s starting center. “But he’s got no fat, none whatsoever. He’s just seven feet of muscle, a muscle monster.”
“King Kong,” says Marvin Pierre.
“Godzilla,” says Keith Dudley.
They are two other members of the Gang of Four, both 6′ 8″ forwards.
“He’s a seven-one, 300-pound Mike Tyson,” says 6′ 6″ Pete Meriweather.
As terrified as his opponents already sounded by his imposing presence, O’Neal painted a much softer portrait of himself in Kirkpatrick’s piece.
“I don’t ever want to grow up,” he says. “I guess I’m like Peter Pan. Grown-ups have problems. I want to stay happy.”
That duality—fearsome player, soft-hearted person—endured throughout O’Neal’s career. Here was the so-called “Man-child” in his infancy.
1992
After three seasons at LSU, O’Neal took the NBA by storm. Right out of the gate O’Neal averaged 23.4 PPG, 13.9 RPG and 3.5 BPG, earning All-Star and Rookie of the Year honors. Jack McCallum’s 1992 profile—“Prince of the City”—is a reminder of O’Neal’s immense and immediate fame.
Shaquille O’Neal stepped out of a stretch limousine, while taking care that his full-length, custom-tailored black leather coat (with a Superman logo on the back) did not touch the wet sidewalk, and began strolling through Times Square.
