Dale Brown, Shaq's father figure, dies at 90

Dale Brown, the longtime basketball coach at Louisiana State University, died on Friday, Oct. 23. He was 90 years old. Brown is best known for identifying and recruiting Shaquille O'Neal to the LSU program in the late 1980s.

The two men first met in 1984 at a military base in West Germany. Brown was running a basketball clinic there when O'Neal, then 13 and already 6 feet 9 inches tall, approached him for advice. Brown initially assumed the teenager was a soldier and asked how long he had served in the Army. Upon learning O'Neal's age, Brown recognized the young athlete's potential.

O'Neal described Brown as a father figure in a 2015 interview with Esquire. He noted that Brown began mailing him basketball exercises and letters after their first meeting. This correspondence continued as O'Neal became a top high school prospect. Brown eventually recruited O'Neal to play for the Tigers from 1989 to 1992.

During his time in Baton Rouge, O'Neal earned two consensus All-American honors and two SEC Player of the Year awards. He was selected as the No. 1 overall pick in the 1992 NBA draft. O'Neal maintained a close bond with Brown throughout his professional career. In a 1999 letter celebrating Brown's induction into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, O'Neal wrote that Brown was the only college coach he ever had and the only one he ever wanted.

Brown attended O'Neal's first NBA championship celebration with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000. That same year, O'Neal returned to LSU to complete his college degree, fulfilling a promise made to his family and Brown when he left school early in 1992. ESPN released a documentary titled Shaq & Dale in 2015, which traced their relationship from Germany through O'Neal's professional success.

On Oct. 21, two days before Brown's death, LSU announced that he had been selected as the 2027 recipient of the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award. O'Neal recorded a video message to congratulate Brown on the honor. The award was scheduled to be presented in April 2027. Brown had been a staple of the LSU basketball program for decades before his retirement.