Yesterday, Shaquille O'Neal tweeted that he was retiring from the NBA after 19 years. I can't tell you about his stats, effectiveness as a team player, or much at all about his overall career. What I can tell you is that he has been a basketball star since I was a kid, and he remained a constant in an otherwise changing world.
Looking back on the players I most remembered from childhood, names like Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Shaq and Mugsy Bogues all come to mind. All of them all now finished. I don't have some sort of deep held affection for basketball, but when you hear that someone who has been an icon of sorts for the majority of your life is retiring, you begin to reflect on what all has changed in your life while that person has been a star.
In the time that Shaq was a star player, I grew several feet, gained a lot of weight, lost a lot of weigh, and ended up at a place where I pass a 10 ft. tall bronze camel on the way to work everyday. I went from watching the Power Rangers each afternoon after school to reading John Steinbeck during the moments when I'm not at school or at work.
Shaq's retirement doesn't affect me at all, but it does cause me to pause and think about what happens in the life of one boy who lived and grew while one man played basketball and about the countless others who experienced life while this giant of a man ran the court, recorded some rap, and made some absolutely horrible movies.
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