I’m not a basketball fan. I never enjoyed playing it, and find televised b-ball even less interesting. I am, however, a huge fan of Shaquille O’Neal. I follow him on Twitter and have always admired his attitude in interviews. He seems pretty down to earth and truly appreciates his position in life.
Having said that, I’m looking forward to watching his new reality tv show “Shaq vs.”, where each week he takes on a different athlete and competes against them in their chosen field. For the first episode, which aired last night, he took on Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Future episodes will see him compete against Michael Phelps, Oscar De La Hoya, and the team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh.
Why does this matter to me as a parent? Because it speaks well of Shaq’s willingness to suffer defeat. At some level, he knows that he’s likely setting himself up for some level of embarrassment; as a professional athlete, he’s worked hard to get to the point where he is one of the more valuable players in the NBA. You can’t expect a week’s worth of training in any field to make you ready to go up against other seasoned professionals.
So it’s likely that he’ll be in situations where he’ll be eating some crow (or in De La Hoya’s case, a big ol’ glove), and he’s okay with that. We should all be so willing to experience humiliation; more often, we tend to avoid situations where that’s a likely outcome. What is our vanity really worth, in the end? And shouldn’t we be modeling fearlessness to our children? History shows that being risk-adverse is no worthwhile course to victory or happiness; “He who dares, wins,” Winston Churchill once said. And what’s more, Shaq is displaying a wonderful playfulness by merely suggesting the concept for this show — more celebrities should embrace this. So many of them take themselves far too seriously as it is.
Shaq, I salute you! Good luck with this show!
