It wasn’t exactly a “surprise” visit – the local high school cheerleaders were all there, along with some other local dignitaries – but our man Shaq paid a sort-of surprise visit to one of his Big Chicken fast-food shops in Valencia, California over the weekend.
Surprise or not, it was very cool to have the big man on hand to chat it up with local fans and media. As always, O’Neal took photos with hundreds of fans and his Big Chicken employees, while also talking with local reporters about some of his business plans, and especially his work to give back to the community.
Shaq: “We just like to make people happy and make people smile. We’ve always done a lot in the community, seen or unseen, but we just want to continue to give back.”
Shaq was in Cali over the past weekend, appearing as his alter ego club disk jockey DJ Diesel on stage at the “Hard Summer” music festival in Los Angeles. Still, he was happy to make the stop. “Oh, today is busy,” O’Neal said. “I gotta do this, something else later then I got a show tonight. It’s good to be back home in L.A. and just come hang out with the people.”
As the word of Shaq’s appearance at the restaurant spread, the lineup outside the shop grew to almost a mile in length, as people stood in the summer heat to get a selfie with the NBA superstar. A local hoops star for the Valencia Vikings team – and his father, the team’s coach – spent a couple of extra minutes chatting with O’Neal.
Baller Bryce Bedgood told reporters about his talk with O’Neal: “He waved me over, first thing he said was, ‘Listen to your dad. If he tells you to run 10 laps, run 20.’ He said a lot of motivational stuff and asked about college recruitment.”
Bedgood is entering his senior year at Valencia. With his father at the helm of the team, the squad has already won a state championship. “We were outside talking when he came in and I filmed him,” Bryce said. “As I was filming him, I saw he was trying to shake my hand. I was thinking, ‘I’m about to dap up Shaq.’ That was insane.”
The owners of the local Valencia store said they got only a short notice telling them the big man was coming for a visit. “It was very exciting getting the news,” owner Andy Giti said. “We got it with very short notice. We didn’t know he was coming that long ago so today’s not a big planned event but we are super excited and we just made it happen.”
Our thanks to The Signal, a local print and online news resource on the north side fo Los Angeles, for info on this post. As The Signal says, O’Neal is known for his hall of fame career on the basketball court but has always been considered one of the most generous celebrities of his time, through his work with the Shaquille O’Neal Foundation and other efforts.
As the young basketball star Bedgood said, “I was going into it hoping to get a picture with him. But there’s no way I just had a conversation with the guy, it’s unreal. He took time out of his whole thing to talk with me. That’s amazing.”