Editor’s note: As the World Cup continues in the United States for the first time since 1994, The Athletic is looking back at college sports in the 1990s and how much has changed since then.
Everyone who saw Shaquille O’Neal from that night forward would have some actual game film to go on, which would serve as a tool for both scouting and demythologization — see, he’s just a 7-foot-1, 286-pound freshman, not a fire-breathing dragon in LA Gear sneakers.
But the first poor sap who had to battle O’Neal in the post, while his Southern Miss teammates dealt with LSU stars Chris Jackson and Stanley Roberts, had one opportunity to watch O’Neal play before Nov. 15, 1989, in Baton Rouge, La. He hadn’t caught the McDonald’s All-American Boys Game on TV a few months earlier. He didn’t see O’Neal collect 18 points, 16 rebounds, six blocks and co-MVP honors.
His first actual glimpse of O’Neal came from across the court as O’Neal entered the arena. O’Neal had to duck his head as he exited the tunnel. The response from the 6-6, 230-pound man who would soon be face-to-face with him?
“Whoa. That’s dangerous.”
Another thing about that man: He would eventually be a top-10 NBA Draft pick, going No. 9 in 1992 to the Philadelphia 76ers — less than an hour after the Orlando Magic took O’Neal at No. 1. But on this night, Clarence Weatherspoon was a little-known sophomore forward playing for a team that was paid to show up and be part of a coronation. Dale Brown’s preseason No. 2-ranked Tigers were finally unveiling the big fella.
Weatherspoon and the physically outmatched opponents who followed in the final weeks of the calendar year actually acquitted themselves quite well. One of them was later inducted into his alma mater’s athletics hall of fame, and his bio lists the modest stats O’Neal put up against him.
It was good to get O’Neal early — before he became “Shaq,” one of the greatest players of all time and perhaps the most imposing, a four-time NBA champion, a three-time Finals MVP, who weighed more than 400 pounds at times during his pro career but never stopped dunking on people.
As a highly hyped freshman out of San Antonio, Texas, he looked skinny at 286 on opening night. Skinny, foul-prone and not impossible to keep out of the lane. When M.K. Turk’s Golden Eagles switched out of zone and into man, 6-11 center Daron Jenkins guarded sophomore Roberts (who was listed at 7-0, 288) and the muscled Weatherspoon kept his elbow in O’Neal’s back and his center of gravity as low as possible.
“Just trying to keep a body on him, doing whatever I could do against one of the biggest humans I’d ever done seen,” said Weatherspoon, who would lead the Golden Eagles to an NCAA Tournament bid that season and later enjoy a 13-year NBA career.
“You’ve got to take it back to a different context; there was no social media then, it was all word of mouth,” said Weatherspoon, who has been coaching since 2016 and is head coach of Meridian (Miss.) Community College. “Shaq and I were in different classes; I was in Mississippi and he was in Texas, so I never saw him before that. You heard about him, you read about him in Street & Smith’s. Our coaches tried to prepare us for what to expect. But you really didn’t know until you saw him in person.”
Such as on a play in which O’Neal gathered an offensive rebound and threw down a ferocious two-handed dunk that shook the basket support and thrilled the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. LSU had renamed its arena a year earlier, after Maravich’s tragic death due to heart failure at age 40. O’Neal represented the biggest basketball draw in Baton Rouge since Maravich dazzled from 1967-70, averaging a still-record 44.2 points a game for his career.
O’Neal, though, would need some ramp-up time before delivering his biggest thrills. Physical defense and foul trouble limited him to 10 points and five rebounds in 16 minutes in his debut. Jackson scored 37. Weatherspoon had 17 points and 14 rebounds in 39 minutes. LSU won 91-80 in a game that was part of the Preseason NIT.
The next one was, too. Roy Williams and Kansas came to town. So did ESPN and Dick Vitale, on the call with Barry Tompkins. O’Neal’s primary defender? Another undersized standout, 6-8 junior forward Mark Randall, who would lead the Jayhawks to the national title game the next season as an All-America senior before going in the first round to Chicago.
Williams mostly went with 6-11 Pekka Markkanen — who later fathered future NBA forward Lauri — on the veteran Roberts and counted on Randall’s guile against O’Neal. O’Neal got an easy putback early over Randall. He ran the floor and, after an LSU steal, threw down a massive dunk, prompting Vitale to declare: “Get ready for the arrival of the new Hakeem ‘The Dream’ Olajuwon in Baton Rouge!”
But seconds after that play, O’Neal lost Randall coming off a screen and Randall swished a wide-open jumper at the top of the key. O’Neal fouled out with 3:42 to go and LSU down 79-74. Kansas held on for an 89-83 win. Randall hit 12 of 15 shots and scored 26. O’Neal had 10 points and seven rebounds. Reality and mythology were diverging.
A string of get-right wins followed, and O’Neal’s first huge game — 26 points, 17 rebounds, six assists and six free throws on 10 tries — came against a tiny Lamar team that had only 6-9 Brad Westbrook to deal with O’Neal and Roberts. O’Neal had 18 and 12 against Hardin-Simmons and its 7-7 center, Mike Lanier.
He also fouled out of another frustrating grinder and near-upset loss to little Northwestern State, a school from three hours away in Natchitoches, La. Another 6-6, 230-pound forward battled him in the post. At one point, officials had to separate O’Neal and Dexter Grimsley.
“It was mouthy with a lot of pushing in there,” said Grimsley, then a freshman and later a state representative in Alabama. “We were tenacious with them, and eventually you could tell they got frustrated.”
At one point, Grimsley ran the floor in transition and found himself alone with the ball near the rim. He wishes today he had given a pump fake — “I could have been hanging on the rim” — but instead he went straight up. O’Neal flew into the play and swatted the ball into the stands.
“It felt like he sent it out of the gym,” Grimsley said. “And then he said, ‘You know better than to try to bring that in here.’”
LSU came back in the second half for an 83-73 win. Grimsley had nine points in just 18 minutes because of foul trouble. But he also fouled out O’Neal, who ended up with 12 points and seven rebounds in 17 minutes. That stat line is part of the bio that accompanied Grimsley’s induction into the Northwestern State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2012.
“One thing I can tell you is we both left that game exhausted,” Grimsley said. “And then I caught some cramps. … It’s just one of those nights you’ll always remember because you went toe to toe with one of the best to ever play the game.”
O’Neal averaged 13.9 and 12.0 for his freshman season. It ended with a second-round NCAA loss to eventual Final Four team Georgia Tech, led by another star of the legendary 1989 freshman class, Kenny Anderson.
Jackson, who later changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, averaged 27.8 points per game that season and left early for the NBA. Roberts left after that season to play in Spain before going in the first round of the 1991 NBA Draft. LSU still had good teams in O’Neal’s sophomore and junior seasons, but college basketball fans never got to see him play past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
They did see him win AP National Player of the Year honors as a sophomore, after he averaged 27.6 points, 14.7 rebounds and 5.0 blocks a game. Reality didn’t take long to catch up.
“I love how people say ‘generational’ all the time now,” Weatherspoon said. “They throw it around way too much. But back then, we were at the beginning of something generational with that big fella, man. But I’m glad I got him as a freshman. That wasn’t Shaq yet, that was Baby Shaq.”