The Official Site of Jermaine O'Neal

Mon, Feb 23rd 2009, 14:41

O'Neal rebuilding image, years after brawl in Detroit

Lawyers. Arbitrators. League officials. Media. Fans. Jermaine O’Neal had a lot of explaining to do, to all sorts of people, and none of it was pleasant.

“But the toughest part for me was to explain it to my daughter,” he says.

He hadn’t brought himself to tell Asjia what had happened on Nov. 19, 2004, or why, in the days that followed, he was home watching games in progress rather than reviewing games on tape. But a sharp 5-year-old doesn’t take long to figure it out, especially when her friends are fans of her father, and that father had recently participated in the ugliest brawl in NBA history.

“Dad, somebody told me you were suspended for punching somebody.”

Her information was accurate, and could be easily confirmed by video airing endlessly on every imaginable television network. O’Neal’s Indiana Pacers just 45.9 seconds away from a statement victory against the defending champion Detroit Pistons. Pistons center Ben Wallace shoving Ron Artest after a hard foul. A fan tossing a cup of beer on Artest as the Pacers forward lay on the scorers table. Artest, and then teammate Stephen Jackson, storming the stands. Fans throwing chairs, bottles and popcorn buckets.

Asjia’s father, considered one of the NBA’s more thoughtful and philanthrophic players, impulsively sliding across the floor and landing an overhand right to a fan who had raced onto the court.

“More than anything, you want to be considered a great father and a role model, especially for your kid,” O’Neal says. “So that was hard.”

Ascia is 10 now. Her father is 30, and Tuesday night will play his fourth game for his third team, the Heat. He will face the Pistons. Detroit’s roster is much different than it was on that night.

So is O’Neal.

“I told some of the guys in here, that changed my life,” O’Neal says. “That was the beginning of some really tough times in Indiana for me. Even though I was still able to make some All-Star teams, mentally I was worn out. And once I wore out mentally, physically I started to wear down. I’m just now starting to get my feet under me.”

O’Neal’s story starts in Columbia, S.C.. Raised primarily by his mother Angela, he developed a love for sports, football above any other. He was a quarterback on the Eau Claire squad, with an arm strong enough that he still likes to show off his spiral.

“I just got too tall,” he says.

He grew five inches to 6 feet 9 in one summer, and he grew mentally and emotionally under the tutelage of his basketball coach, George Glymph, who challenged players and occupied their idle time with cross-country training and extra study halls. When Glymph first met O’Neal, the teenager was withdrawn, ashamed of his financial circumstances. Glymph practiced interviews with him, and by the time O’Neal graduated, he was self-assured enough to accommodate the dozens of fans lining up for his autograph.

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