WITH MINUTES LEFT within the fourth quarter of the SLAM Summer time Basic at Rucker Park in New York Metropolis, Me’Arah O’Neal catches a lob move close to half court docket. A transparent pathway to the basket and a rim simply ready to be grabbed sparks an outrageous concept. The concept isn’t hers alone.
“She wish to dunk!” the emcee yells as tons of of followers rise and cheer. “Get your dunk on your pops!”
A defender inches nearer then backs off and motions her arms towards Me’Arah. “Go on,” the defender says and alerts together with her left arm that the coast is obvious.
Me’Arah dribbles towards the ring on the legendary streetball court docket, takes two steps and unspools her 6-foot-4 physique because it elevates nearer to the basket. Her proper hand reaches for the rim. And the ball slips out.
She is shut sufficient to show the would-be dunk right into a layup. However it is not what she had imagined.
She dips her head and makes just a little fist together with her proper hand — How dare you lose your grip! — earlier than flashing a glance and smiling at her mother, stepdad and siblings who’re watching from behind the basket. She pushes each of her arms up in a “elevate the roof” movement earlier than speeding again on protection. She is aware of she was shut.
“My dad all the time tells me that stress makes diamonds,” Me’Arah says. “I all the time attempt to maintain that with me, particularly in these moments the place everyone seems to be watching. I am simply making an attempt to do me and make myself proud.”
Stress is nothing new for Me’Arah, a senior put up participant at Episcopal Excessive Faculty in Houston. For so long as she will bear in mind, expectations — Diesel-sized expectations — have adopted her onto the basketball court docket. In 2016, her dad, Shaquille O’Neal, predicted throughout his Naismith Corridor of Fame induction speech that Me’Arah could be the most effective ladies’s basketball participant ever. She was 10.
She’s not the most effective but. She won’t ever be the most effective. As an alternative, on the age of 17, she’s studying that she will make a reputation for herself, one which’s rooted in her father’s legacy however outlined by her personal sport. In her ultimate 12 months of highschool, she’s able to show to herself that she has what it takes to play on the subsequent stage and be elite in her personal approach.
“I am fairly certain a lotta individuals anticipate me to play similar to my dad,” Me’Arah says. “Robust, huge put up participant, runnin’ by means of individuals, what Shaq does. However I am not that. The most important expectation is to prove like my dad. However fulfilling that title, that is probably not my aim. … I simply wanna be my very own individual and make a reputation for myself. And I feel I am doing that fairly nicely.”
RELEGATED TO THE sidelines of a 6,000-square-foot basketball court docket inside her household’s Orlando mansion, 3-year-old Me’Arah watched her older siblings dribble the basketball and run round pretending they had been NBA gamers like their dad. Because the child of the household, Me’Arah was normally overlooked. However she wished to bounce the ball. Run with it. Cross it. Shoot it.
Sooner or later, her brothers lastly gave in and let her be part of. Along with her father’s memorabilia hanging from the partitions and an enormous Superman brand bolted close to half court docket, Me’Arah enthusiastically dribbled the ball, a lot to the shock of her household.
All of the O’Neal kids had been gifted, however her mother says Me’Arah took it to a different stage.
“Once I first noticed Me’Arah dribble a basketball,” Shaunie Henderson says, “I really was type of shocked as a result of nobody taught her. She simply watched her brothers. It wasn’t even like she was just a little woman that watched basketball on tv. … She has a God-given athletic capacity that’s simply not regular.”
Myles, Shareef and Shaqir refused to take it straightforward on their child sister.
“In the course of the early years, they used to push her round, and she or he used to get mad,” Shaquille says. “And you understand, for us, our vampire bloodline, after we get mad, it is over. She positively used to get mad. And I used to get mad on the boys for, you understand, pushing her round just a little bit.”
Me’Arah liked the problem. She was fearless towards her brothers. Whether or not it was one-on-one or all of the older siblings towards Me’Arah, the mismatches pushed her to get higher. That was precisely what she wished.
However regardless of how thrilling it was to look at their youngest dribble the basketball and get buckets towards her brothers, Shaquille and Shaunie say they by no means pressured any of their kids to play basketball.
“I am the sort that I do not actually push it on ’em,” Shaquille says. “I all the time wished them to only be capable to observe their goals and be very, very educated.”
One afternoon, just some months after kindergarten began, Shaunie obtained a name from the bodily training trainer at Me’Arah’s college. “Hey, do you have got time to return to the varsity just a little early earlier than pickup?” “Certain, no downside,” Shaunie mentioned, curious in regards to the unusual request.
When she arrived, the P.E. trainer wasted no time. “I want you to see your daughter throw a soccer.” Shaunie checked out him, bewildered. “Have you ever ever seen her throw a soccer?” he requested. Shaunie advised him her daughter did not even play soccer.
On the schoolyard, 5-year-old Me’Arah stood subsequent to the opposite youngsters and waved at her mother. The P.E. trainer ran onto the sphere — in Shaunie’s reminiscence he was some 50 yards from her daughter — and requested Me’Arah to throw him the ball. Shaunie thought to herself, “There is not any approach my little woman goes to make it to him. She’s solely 5.” With one easy movement, Me’Arah launched the soccer within the air straight to the trainer.
“It was that second that I used to be like, ‘Oh she’s particular,'” Shaunie says.
Shaunie signed her daughter up for flag soccer and leisure basketball in Orlando on the native YMCA. “All weekend, we would be on the rec middle taking part in video games,” Shaunie says. “She clearly had a expertise stage past her age.”
Practically day-after-day, Me’Arah returned to the household’s indoor court docket to tackle her brothers.
“She simply wished to play basketball on a regular basis,” says 23-year-old Shareef, who performed at UCLA, LSU and most lately within the G League. “We would all play with one another and my associates, you understand, a few of my associates which are within the NBA now. She’d slightly play with us than play together with her associates. Even from when she was single digits, she all the time wished to play with the boys — the older boys.”
WEARING A BRIGHT pink gown and sitting between her sister Amirah and brother Myles, Me’Arah watched as her dad walked as much as the stage to be formally inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame as a part of the 2016 class.
His speech reflecting on his profession — 4 NBA championships and a 15-time All-Star — spanned a half-hour. Towards the tip, he shocked his youngsters with a request. He requested each to face up individually.
“My youngest child, Me’Arah. Arise, child,” he mentioned. Her gown glistened underneath the intense lights. She raised up her proper arm, pressed her lips collectively, smiled and waved to the gang. Because the viewers cheered, she appeared straight at her father earlier than sitting again down.
“I do not prefer to put stress on my infants, however she works out with my sons, and I feel it is honest to say in the future if she continues, Me’Arah will most likely be the most effective ladies’s basketball participant ever,” Shaquille mentioned. “She’s that good.”
Along with her legs crossed and her hand fidgeting together with her gown, Me’Arah smiled at her dad earlier than turning to her brothers and mom. Her smile by no means pale as she gently shook her head and turned again to have a look at her father.
Later that evening, she confided in her mom: “Oh my God, I am unable to imagine he mentioned that.”
Shaunie wasn’t shocked by Shaquille’s reward. If something, she was shocked by Me’Arah’s shock at his reward.
“I do not suppose she felt stress negatively,” Shaunie says. “I feel she felt stress to get it collectively and actually hone in on what she wished in that second. I feel it was a particular second for the 2 of them.”
Me’Arah had way back come to know how a lot her father was adored. “Each time we’d exit or simply do stuff as a household, there was an enormous crowd of individuals screaming, ‘Oh my God, Shaq!'” she says.
What she did not perceive is what, precisely, he noticed in her. And even how he noticed it. All through her childhood, there could be weeks — generally months — the place her father would not be round. Her mother and father’ divorce was finalized in 2011, years earlier than that Corridor of Fame ceremony, and he appeared to all the time be on the street. Since she was born, he performed for Miami, Phoenix, Cleveland and Boston. Typically, even when he was round, Me’Arah felt like he cared extra about what her brothers had been doing on the court docket and fewer about how she was progressing.
Shaquille says he knew Me’Arah’s sport was in good arms with the steerage from her mother, brothers and coaches.
“I prefer to suppose I can see the long run,” Shaquille says. “You bought just a little child doing that and looking out like that. And I solely dream optimistic ideas. In case you’re in the home and her kind is ideal, and she or he’s not beating her greater brother and sister however hanging with ’em at a younger age, like oh, you simply know.”
His prediction was complicated then. It is complicated now.
“It is scary,” Me’Arah says, “that he really believes that.”
WHENEVER ME’ARAH OR considered one of her siblings stepped foot in a fitness center for a basketball sport, crowds adopted. They had been “Shaq’s youngsters.” It did not matter in the event that they had been hooping on the native YMCA or at an AAU event, individuals got here for the “O’Neal” title and stayed to see what the children might do. Oftentimes, footage or movies made their solution to social media. Feedback flooded in.
“Once I was taking part in, my brothers had been taking part in, we’d have large crowds within the fitness center simply because individuals knew both my dad was within the fitness center or they only knew that we had been taking part in,” says 21-year-old Amirah, who walked on at LSU (her dad’s alma mater) earlier than transferring to Texas Southern. She now not performs. “Individuals had all these expectations of us to be simply so nice even at a younger age.”
For Me’Arah, a youngster who was simply beginning to take her sport critically, that spotlight and people expectations had been paralyzing.
Earlier than a few of her video games, Me’Arah confided with Amirah.
“What if I play dangerous?” she requested. “Persons are going to say I suck.”
Amirah had a patented reply. “You are going to have dangerous video games. Everybody has dangerous video games sometimes. Persons are simply going to wish to come for you due to your final title. You possibly can’t let it get to you.”
Me’Arah had grown accustomed to the chaos that adopted her household virtually in all places. “You know the way it goes… simply huge ol’ crowds yelling his title, asking for footage,” she says. However on sport days — her sport days — it felt completely different.
“If he simply confirmed up simply to point out up, then it threw me off,” Me’Arah says. “It used to mess with me.”
The expectations and pressures of not simply residing as much as her father’s legacy however being even remotely ok to have an opportunity to step into these expectations weighed closely on her. Me’Arah’s self-confidence plummeted, particularly when it got here to basketball.
“It isn’t even the expectations with my dad,” Me’Arah says. “It is simply me as a person. I am actually, actually arduous on myself. I simply really feel like I am not ok or I am not doing this ok or I am simply not ok as an individual.”
The concept of not being “ok” reached its peak when she began taking part in AAU tournaments. Proper earlier than her freshman 12 months in highschool, her household moved from Orlando to Los Angeles, and she or he wished to make basketball greater than a beloved after-school exercise.
The extra critically she took basketball, the extra weak she turned. She performed in greater gyms, in entrance of extra individuals, which meant she opened herself as much as extra criticism and out of doors opinions.
“The unlucky factor with the final title,” Shaquille says, “they’re all the time going to be anticipated to be nice.”
Amirah observed the eye negatively impacting her sister’s psychological well being.
“Individuals suppose that all the pieces is really easy with us with out actually taking a look at all of the psychological stuff we’ve to undergo with all the pieces, particularly with social media and all of the destructive issues individuals should say,” Amirah says. “Individuals will even come to video games and scream destructive issues at you simply due to who you’re. I really feel like simply due to our final title, individuals wish to simply type of taunt us and make us really feel a sure approach. There may be lots of stress that she has to cope with.”
As Me’Arah struggled to deal with the stress of residing life within the highlight, she encountered a complete new set of challenges with residing life in isolation.
SHAUNIE FELL IN LOVE once more. She deliberate to get remarried. She moved Me’Arah, Shaqir and Amirah from Los Angeles to Houston to be close to her fiancé, a pastor named Keion Henderson.
The COVID-19 pandemic held a agency grip on the nation, and Me’Arah, a sophomore in highschool, began digital college in a brand new college in a brand new metropolis.
Countless hours caught inside left Me’Arah with little to do and lots to consider. Am I ok? Do I’ve what it takes? Even when I do, will the pandemic smash my goals?
Keion observed Me’Arah spiraling and hatched a plan. He went to a sporting items retailer and located precisely what he was on the lookout for.
Admittedly not a handyman, Keion took out his instruments and flipped by means of the instruction handbook. With cardboard bins and steel elements unfold each which approach, he began with the bottom and made certain the inspiration was sturdy. After bolting the pole attachments, his imaginative and prescient began coming to life. A couple of hours later, a basketball hoop towered over the driveway.
The following morning, Me’Arah went outdoors and christened his creation. She made her first basket. Each morning, rain or shine, she practiced within the driveway. Keion turned her teammate, her companion, her advisor. The makeshift court docket was a far cry from the indoor extravaganza in Orlando the place she discovered the sport, nevertheless it was precisely what she wanted.
“I needed to first get Me’Arah to really concentrate on two issues: Who she is and what she comes from,” Keion says. “I needed to get Me’Arah to know early, ‘You are not regular. Your father is an icon, which signifies that you are gonna have consideration and expectations on you that the common child will not have. You possibly can both let this make you bitter or you may enable this to make you higher.'”
They arrange objectives and quotas. Typically the objectives had been so simple as “not lacking a layup.” When quotas on the court docket weren’t met for the day or objectives not achieved, she would run down her sloping driveway to the road and run again.
At first Keion observed that Me’Arah was making an attempt to please him. However then one thing switched.
“She completed off not desirous to let herself down,” Keion says. “And after I noticed her not desirous to let herself down, I knew we had a winner.”
Keion launched Me’Arah to former NBA participant and personal growth and expertise coach Moochie Norris. With restrictions lifted and AAU beginning once more, it was time for Me’Arah to lock in for her ultimate few years of highschool.
“I am working together with her, actually simply serving to her outline extra elements of her sport,” Norris says. “We all know Shaq was one of the dominant gamers to ever play this sport. She’s going to by no means be that. She’s not even making an attempt to be that. She’s going to be efficient on the field and across the basket. However her sport is a lot extra out on the perimeter and the mid-range. As a result of she will really deal with it and shoot it.”
By the tip of her junior 12 months, letters from faculties had flooded her mailbox. The College of Virginia was first, again when she lived in L.A. She had saved it in a plastic field. Quickly, there have been so many letters that the highest of the field would not keep closed.
“Simply seeing the progress over time, seeing all of the D-I presents and all of the alternatives which were given to me,” Me’Arah says, “I spotted, like, ‘I really can do that… I bought this.'”
This previous summer season, Shaquille confirmed up at considered one of Me’Arah’s tournaments in Chicago. He stood by the bench and watched his daughter dominate within the paint. He determined it was time to problem her, to check her, to see what his child woman was all about. (Sorry, Coach.)
“She had the ball, and I mentioned, ‘Step again and shoot a 3.’ And he or she stepped again and shot the three and made it,” Shaquille says. “That is when you understand an individual’s good. Like, when you may inform an individual to do one thing and so they do not have to consider it and so they do it proper then.
“I have been seein’ her get higher and higher.”
Most school coaches agree. Quickly after the event, Me’Arah appeared by means of the plastic field full of school letters. Ranked No. 33 within the espnW High 100 for the 2024 class, virtually each prime college within the nation had contacted her.
“The phrase ‘elite’ is just a little overused,” says Shane Laflin, director of ESPN recruiting evaluation. “However if you happen to’re speaking elite, she’s elite. There is not any query.”
One month after wanting on the field, Me’Arah shared together with her social media followers her prime eight faculties: LSU, Florida, Baylor, Kentucky, Cal, Arizona State, Georgia Tech and Tennessee. Over 350 feedback and hundreds of likes flooded her put up. With each optimistic remark and like, her confidence grew.
ALMOST ONE YEAR after her first observe with Norris, Me’Arah walks into the neighborhood middle hooked up to Keion’s church. The fitness center is aptly known as The Dream Middle Houston. Unfold throughout the entry partitions are inspirational and aspirational quotes. A dream would not turn into actuality by means of magic; it takes sweat, dedication and arduous work. And, All of your goals can come true, if we’ve the braveness to pursue them. Michael Jordan and Barack Obama quotes have additionally made their approach onto the partitions.
4 hours in the past, the ultimate bell rang at Episcopal Excessive Faculty, and Me’Arah’s busy after-school schedule commenced. She practiced together with her highschool group, lifted weights and drove an hour north to Humble, Texas, to coach with Norris.
Even a few of her hardest rivals — her brothers — applaud her work ethic and the development in her sport.
“I’ve seen it develop tremendously,” says Shaqir, a redshirt sophomore ahead at Texas Southern. “As a result of after we had been youngsters, we would all the time go at it. And like I mentioned, I would tough her up.”
Norris thinks Me’Arah’s ceiling continues to be far-off.
“We have not seen the most effective of her but, like, not even shut,” he says. “I feel we’re simply scratching the floor. She’s simply beginning to blossom. … However we’ll see some wonderful issues.”
Me’Arah O’Neal isn’t going to be Shaquille O’Neal. She’s by no means going to dominate the best way he did. Her expertise are extra versatile. She will be able to deal with the ball, make outdoors photographs, even make free throws. It is her sport, her title.
Her aspirations, too.
“I wanna make it to the WNBA,” Me’Arah says. “I wanna maintain my very own title. I wanna simply be the most effective basketball participant that I could possibly be. Simply attain my full potential and get a championship, make All-Star. Do all the massive stuff and ultimately make the Corridor of Fame.”
As huge as these objectives are, Shaquille thinks they’re potential. His perception in his daughter hasn’t modified.
“If she retains it up, she will certainly be within the historical past books,” he says.
On Sunday, she’ll announce her school choice. She lately went out to dinner together with her dad to let him in on her plan. However for now, there’s nonetheless issues to enhance, work to be achieved.
As Me’Arah waits for Norris to get a basketball, she units up her telephone on a padded wall behind one of many baskets.
Sporting a black T-shirt that reads “goal > recognition,” grey sweatpants hanging low on prime of tie-dyed white basketball shorts and aquamarine Crocs, Me’Arah appears to be like into her telephone digicam and wiggles her physique in just a little dance earlier than strolling to the ring.
She reaches her proper hand up. She loops her finger by means of the web.
“I am, like, so shut,” she says.
