While I Have Your Attention Its Never Too Late for a New
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COPYRIGHT
While I Have Your Attention
© 2024 by Lucille O’Neal
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
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of the publisher.
Portions of this book were excerpted and adapted from Walk Like You Have Somewhere to Go
(9781595553072).
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books
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ISBN 978-1-4003-4421-5 (softcover)
ISBN 978-1-4003-4420-8 (eBook)
ISBN 978-1-4003-4422-2 (audio)
Epub Edition SEPTEMBER 2024 9781400344208
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I dedicate this memoir of my life experiences to my sixteen grandchildren
and three great-grandchildren. You were all birthed with a purpose. I leave
you a legacy full of love and hope for your future. I want to remind you
what I learned from your great-grandmother Odessa: God has the master
plan for your life. Keep your head up, and never forget to “walk like you
have somewhere to go.”
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own
understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy
paths.
—Proverbs 3:5–6 KJV
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword by Dr. Shaquille O’Neal
Preface
Chapter 1: “Living in Confusion”
Chapter 2: Life Ain’t Been No Crystal Stair
Chapter 3: Man About Town
Chapter 4: “We Are Family”
Chapter 5: “Love, No Limit”
Chapter 6: Can I Get an Amen?
Chapter 7: Big Lou
Chapter 8: School Daze
Chapter 9: “He’s So Fine”
Chapter 10: “Tonight’s the Night . . .”
Chapter 11: The Little Warrior
Chapter 12: Why They Do It
Chapter 13: “That’s the Way Love Goes”
Chapter 14: Daddy’s Home!
Chapter 15: Losing Lucille
Chapter 16: “Lean on Me”
Chapter 17: “Inner City Blues”
Chapter 18: New Marching Orders
Chapter 19: “Been Around the World”
Chapter 20: “The Best of My Love”
Chapter 21: The Family That Plays Together . . .
Chapter 22: “A Change Is Gonna Come”
Chapter 23: Good Intentions
Chapter 24: Let the Games Begin
Chapter 25: The Emptier Nest
Chapter 26: Eyes Wide Open
Chapter 27: “New Attitude”
Chapter 28: Mommy
Chapter 29: Starting Over
Chapter 30: “The Wild, Wild West”
Chapter 31: “Through the Fire”
Chapter 32: Another Test
Chapter 33: “Never Would Have Made It”
Epilogue: A Note from Lucille
Acknowledgments
The Odessa Chambliss Quality of Life Fund
Notes
About the Author
FOREWORD BY
DR. SHAQUILLE O’NEAL
At around 8:00 a.m. on March 6, 1972, I had my first opportunity to gaze
into the eyes of an angel. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect image as
my first sight after arriving in the world that day. Her name is Lucille, and
I’ve had the pleasure of calling her Mother for the last fifty-two years.
The woman who inspired me at every step of my own journey in the
NBA and beyond gave up so much for me and my brother and sisters so we
could have opportunities and lifestyles none of us could have ever dreamed
of. As we moved from place to place with my father, Phil (who was in the
army), we never imagined all of what we have been able to achieve.
Because my mom was just a teenager when I was born, we supported
each other as we both grew and evolved over the years. I remember how
hard she worked as a single mother, and then as a wife and caretaker to a
houseful of rambunctious (my sisters), stubborn (my brother), and well-
behaved (me) kids. LOL!!
We never saw her down—she wouldn’t allow it—and she balanced our
lives, as well as her own, with the precision of a highly skilled
neurosurgeon. She certainly kept me safe as a young man so that I could
realize my dream of playing professional basketball. Through it all, she’s
never let me give up on myself, even when things seemed the most
hopeless.
Today, after my nineteen years in the NBA, she’s still the ultimate
inspiration for everything I do. Watching her have the courage to return to
school after age forty, and become single again after twenty-eight years of
marriage, has given me the strength to face my opponents (and anything
else) both on and off the court with little hesitation.
I am what I am, and I have what I have, because of Lucille O’Neal’s
DNA running through my veins. Trust me—all who read this book will
benefit from the wisdom I’ve been relying on for years. Thank you,
Mommy! I love you.
PREFACE
My life, and for the most part the lives of my entire family, have been in
the spotlight since the day my son Shaquille entered the NBA back in 1992.
As far back as then, I’ve thought off and on about telling my own story. My
life has always consisted of much more than just being the mother of a
beloved sports icon or the recipient of massive fortune and fame.
Oddly enough, throughout the years I’d always convince myself that it
wasn’t the right time. I’ve questioned whether anyone really wanted to hear
what a New Jersey girl had to say. Why would they care? My thinking
baffled Shaquille, who would regularly remind me of how inspiring my
life’s tale could be for the countless people out there facing the same
obstacles and setbacks in their lives that I’ve faced in mine. Shaquille is my
oldest child, and there is a six-year age difference between him and his next
sibling. So for several years it was just the two of us trying to make it,
which gave Shaquille—more than any of my other children—a front row
seat to some of my darkest hours. Obviously, my son knows a good story
when he lives one. Still, I hesitated to share my life in print. In hindsight, I
realize that I hesitated because my story really didn’t have all the necessary
chapters until very recently. I had to come full circle with life’s big events
—like death, divorce, and renewal—before I could not only explain to
people the meaning of my journey, but also how I’d come out on the other
end and how they could do the same.
After a very long and successful career in the NBA, the time came for
my son to leave the basketball court. His retirement marked the end of
much of the attention and fascination the public had with his personal life—
something I can honestly say now I looked forward to. But it also hit me
that the right time for me to lay it all out had finally arrived—the ups and
downs and ins and outs of a life forever changed by a miracle, but still in
progress—all “while I have your attention.”
CHAPTER 1
“LIVING IN CONFUSION”
When I stepped through the door of our three-story New Jersey home that
bright summer afternoon, I knew my secret was a secret no more. On our
deep-beige, plastic-covered sofa in the living room sat my mother, Odessa,
smiling pleasantly as usual, and my grandmother Cillar, who (per usual)
was not smiling at all. These two women were not the best of friends. In
fact, they were far from it, which explained why they were sitting on
opposite ends of the sofa. But something had brought them together on this
fateful evening, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t high tea. The two most
prominent women in my world were there to confront me about something
I’d chosen to ignore. In the previous weeks my seventeen-year-old body
had begun to change ever so slightly. I’d been skin and bones most of my
young life, but suddenly I was putting on weight. My mornings before I
departed for school were filled with constant trips to the bathroom to throw
up, and nothing I ate stayed down for very long. These were all symptoms
of a condition I was much too scared to even admit to myself was possible.
This was 1971, not long after the end of the civil rights movement, and still
a time when being young, single, and pregnant was a thing of shame for the
entire family. To add to my disgrace, I’d been raised in the most Christian
of households, so my embarrassment would be all the worse.
How could I have sinned like that? my grandmother asked with
absolutely no patience for my answer. Her disapproving face said it all. I
was crushed and ashamed that day, but this is exactly how the impending
birth of my oldest child, Shaquille Rashaun, was announced at my home.
Though I knew his arrival would change my life forever, I never guessed in
just how many mind-boggling ways.
As I sat there that day, listening to my grandmother lash out at me for
all my “sinful transgressions,” I did what I often do when things became too
much for me to handle: I zoned out. Why would I stay in that moment to
hear my grandmother accuse me of being a ho’ on wheels and a tramp and
any other negative name she could think of? In retrospect, I think my
grandmother was angry about a lot of things that day—things that had little
to do with me. Her life hadn’t exactly been rainbows and moonbeams, and
I’d unwittingly provided her a perfect opportunity to unleash all that pent-
up frustration on me. My mother, on the other hand, said nothing as my
grandmother verbally let loose. Her pleasant facial expression and smile
said to be calm and let my grandmother vent. I tried my best to comply and
just sat there with my hands folded in my lap. To stop myself from crying, I
bit my lip and focused on a small piece of wallpaper that had begun to peel
away behind my grandmother’s head.
Many of the questions my grandmother asked me that day, she already
knew the answers to. She most certainly had met my boyfriend and the
father of my baby, because he’d been at the house a number of times. She
even liked him, or at least she seemed to. Still, she felt it necessary to go
over all the details of how I could have gotten myself in the “family way.”
She wanted reasons that day, but I had none for her. None that I wanted to
share, that is. All I could manage to do was mumble I was sorry a thousand
times, until I couldn’t say it anymore and didn’t want to say it again.
We never know where the circumstances of our lives, good or bad, will
lead us. Lord knows I sure didn’t. I was so depressed prior to Shaquille’s
birth. I felt my life was essentially over before it had a chance to begin. I
was seventeen years old and just finishing high school when I found out I
was pregnant. How would I rebound from having a baby so early in my life
with no higher education or job skills? What kind of mother would I be
when I was barely able to take care of myself? These questions haunted me
prior to my son’s birth and sent me spiraling down into a world of self-pity
and self-doubt. But in truth, I knew my self-esteem issues didn’t begin with
Shaquille’s future entrée into the world. I’d battled with the residue of an
unloving and unhappy childhood for years, which in turn caused me to look
for love in all the wrong places. But I had no idea how to deal with the
many confusing thoughts and feelings running through my young mind. I
just knew I was heading in the wrong direction and needed to turn around
before it was too late.
We don’t often see in our childhoods many things that are blatant to us
as adults. I can’t keep count of the number of people who have told me they
never knew they were poor growing up until they were fully grown.
Honestly, I wish I’d been that clueless about my own life. I unfortunately
understood very early on that I wasn’t growing up in what anyone would
call a “traditional family” setting—it wasn’t even close. My parents
divorced when I was just three years old, and that left my older brother,
Roy; younger sister, Vivian; and me to be raised by my father and his
family.
The fact that my parents separated when I was very young impacted my
life in ways that I can’t begin to fully comprehend, not even today. That
single event would go on to define how I felt—in both positive and negative
ways—about the woman I would later become. Obviously, many people go
through divorce and learn to deal with the aftermath of a family torn apart;
however, for me and my two siblings, there were so many questions about
what actually happened to our family and why. These are questions that
wouldn’t be answered until much later on.
CHAPTER 2
LIFE AIN’T BEEN NO CRYSTAL STAIR
Though I was born in a little town called Dublin, Georgia, I have
absolutely no memories of the Deep South or of the home where I most
likely took my first steps. As soon as our parents went their separate ways
in the late 1950s, my father and his family moved us by car to Newark,
New Jersey. I can still vaguely recall sitting in a jam-packed car for what
seemed like forever as we made our way up north. Neither my brother and
sister nor I could even ask if we were there yet because we didn’t know
where “there” was! Looking back at how hastily we moved to our new city,
it almost feels as though my father’s family wanted to make sure our
earliest memories of life and our mother were erased as quickly as they had
been formed.
Much later, my siblings and I would learn that we were moved to New
Jersey so quickly because our mother wanted out of her marriage with our
father. All I remembered during this time was that I didn’t understand why
our family wasn’t like every other family I knew. All of the other families
had a home with a mommy, a daddy, and children all living under one roof.
There were always two parents, and certainly none of these families were
moving to a new state to get away from each other. Nowadays it’s more
common than not that children grow up in a single-parent household, but
this was a time in African American life when two parents in the home was
a given. How things have changed today, and unfortunately for the worse.
My family was different. When my father, brother, sister, and I first
moved to Jersey (most of my father’s family already lived in New Jersey),
we shared the second floor of a crowded three-story building on South
Eighth Street. Our differences from other families in the neighborhood
didn’t end there, mind you; my grandfather’s brothers and sisters and their
families also lived in that big building on Eighth Street: some on the first
floor, more on the second floor with us, and the rest on the third floor. It’s
amazing the things I can still visualize all these years later, like the
elaborate sleeping plan created for all of us to fit on that cramped second
floor. In all honesty, it wasn’t just people that made our new home so
cramped. My grandparents loved the antique pieces of the time and had a
great deal of large, dark, mahogany wood furniture throughout the house
that people pay an arm and leg for today. Of course, it wasn’t that expensive
back then, so anyone with any type of money furnished their homes that
same way. For some reason that furniture always brought a certain
melancholy and sadness to the house because it was so heavy, hard, and
cold. There was no way to escape it either—because it was everywhere, in
the hallway, the living room, and the bedrooms.
In fact, those pieces were so depressing to me that when I began
furnishing my house (or “little hut,” as I like to call it), I made a point of
only choosing light, mellow-colored sofas, chairs, etc.—in creams, tans,
and yellow tones. Those colors always seem to calm, comfort, and relax me
after a day out and about. Today, I love to complement my furniture with
luscious green plants and colorful flowers. I love greenery, particularly
since it was a luxury we couldn’t afford when I was a child.
Not surprisingly, our little home in New Jersey soon became so
overcrowded that we had no choice but to move again. We packed up all of
our belongings, and this time we moved into a larger abode at 296 Littleton
Avenue. In this setup, our father slept on the couch in the living room, an
aunt slept on a foldaway bed in the den, and another had a small bedroom
near the front of the house. My sister and I shared one bed in a very, very
small room in the front of the house. When I say small, I mean shoebox tiny
—we had to step outside of the room to turn around, and that’s no joke. The
full-size bed and mismatched tiny dresser (which my grandparents
purchased from the Goodwill) that was placed in the corner took up every
ounce of space. When Shaquille was born, we had to move the dresser out
to fit his little crib in. As my sister and I got older, we craved our own
space, but in the beginning it wasn’t that bad being so close, literally and
figuratively, to my sister. I was older than her, so I could boss her around a
little, and we could share things about our day that only sisters can. Having
a little sister can drive you crazy, but it can also be a relationship like no
other. My brother bunked near my father, and my grandparents shared the
biggest bedroom in the home, all the way in the back on the second floor.
