Shaquille O’Neal gained a gold medal with the US males’s basketball staff on the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. However the Corridor of Famer in a latest episode of his The Large Podcast with Shaq mentioned he threw his gold medal out of a automotive window due to one thing he took subject with throughout their remaining recreation.
Generally known as the Dream Crew III, the 1996 United States males’s Olympic basketball staff’s roster included the likes of O’Neal, Grant Hill, and Reggie Miller. Others included the 1992 Olympic Dream Crew gamers – Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, and David Robinson.
O’Neal, 52, acknowledged that he threw his gold medal away out of anger, including that it occurred after the award ceremony. “The Olympic video games, ‘96, I performed all through, helped them come again, win video games,” the previous Los Angeles Lakers star mentioned, per PEOPLE.
“And within the gold medal recreation, [coach] Lenny Wilkens says, ‘Hey that is in all probability David Robinson’s final recreation, so he’s gonna get extra minutes.’ I mentioned ‘Cool.’”
He added: “However he didn’t play me in any respect till just like the final two minutes. I used to be so pissed off, after the ceremony, I drove dwelling in my uniform and I threw the goddamn medal out the window on I-75.”
As as to if the medal has been discovered, O’Neal, who represented the US Olympic basketball staff simply as soon as, informed co-host Adam Lefkoe that he feels that isn’t the case.
“I went like this [O’Neal motions as if he is ripping the medal off his neck] and threw it out the window,” the NBA champion recalled. “I used to be so mad.”
O’Neal has up to now opened up about his anger points and the way he has struggled relating to suppressing it. “After a nasty recreation, particularly if it was my fault, missed my free throws, I’d go loopy,” he informed PEOPLE in 2022. “I’d tear the home up. I used to be the Hulk.”
Regardless of these points, anybody who follows the retired basketball legend is aware of how large of a coronary heart he has, and that is evident by way of his charitable endeavors. In 2023, Face2Face Africa reported that O’neal gifted a random lady a model new $1,200 Samsung Galaxy Z Flip cellphone at a retailer in Louisiana.
Immediately.com additionally reported a couple of time when O’Neal determined to make the day of a random stranger he met at a jewellery retailer by paying off the engagement ring he had placed on layaway. He defended his act, saying, “Don’t fear about it. I do it on a regular basis. I’m simply attempting to make folks smile. That’s all.”
Other than his many random acts of kindness, O’Neal helps a number of charitable organizations, just like the Boys & Women Golf equipment of America, the Make-A-Want Basis, Feed the Youngsters, the Particular Olympics, and his personal basis, the Shaquille O’Neal Basis, which he based to help numerous causes, together with training, healthcare, and underserved communities.
