Getty Shaquille O'Neal had a story to tell about legendary singer Stevie Wonder. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)
Los Angeles Lakers legend, Shaquille O’Neal loves his mom, Lucille O’Neal.
On episode 56 of the Scoop B Radio Podcast, Lucille O’Neal told me that her most memorable Mother’s Day gift was a cutting board, that Shaq made with the inscription that reads, ‘Lu’s Kitchen.’
“I still have that cutting board,” she told me.
“And the reason I love it is because when we get in the kitchen together and I cook fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, that cutting board always comes to my mind. It was one of my first Mother’s Day gifts.”
The two have a strong bond and it was recently detailed in an Epson commerical. The commerical features mom and son reliving memories in their hometown of Newark, New Jersey.
“You were in Jersey City, in grandma’s kitchen,” Lucille O’Neal said in the commercial.
“And you always was a baby want to sit on my lap. You bigger than me – you should’ve been holding me… [Looking at Shaq, smiling]… look how cute you were!”
Epson recently announced that Lucille O’Neal will be collaborating with Epson to become the “Chief Memory Officer.”
Makes sense. In that commercial, the two looked through old pictures and discussed the importance of digitizing irreplaceable memories using Epson’s FastFoto FF-680W to keep family legacy alive.
They’ve come a long way and Shaq’s mom mad a lot of sacrifices for her son. “Biggest sacrifice was maybe not having the money to pay a bill or having money to pay a bill and used it when my children had a need for it,” she told Scoop B Radio.
“I made many sacrifices but those are some of the ones where I would just put them first, I always put them first. Still do sometimes. But I don’t look at it as a sacrifice, I just am happy I’m able to do it. You know when you become a mother it’s no longer me first, it’s family first.”
Did you know that Lucille O’Neal played basketball herself? She played the center position. “Because I’m tall so I played the middle,” she told Scoop B Radio.
“Nice defensive game not concentrating too much on the offense, but played defense because we were only able to go half court. The game is much different for women today.
“When I played basketball it was so quiet because we were only able to play half court. Now they have the WNBA where the women play as well as the men and they dominate the game at every position. I never played that level.”