The York man who taught Shaq how to play
Chris Woodard of York was stationed in Germany when a sergeant asked him to teach his son, Shaquille, how to play hoops.
The York man who taught Shaq how to play Chris Woodard of York was stationed in Germany when a sergeant asked him to teach his son, Shaquille, how to play hoops. Check out this story on ydr.com: http://on-ydr.co/2p0OLf4
Mike Argento, margento@ydr.com Published 6:54 p.m. ET April 20, 2017 | Updated 8:54 a.m. ET April 21, 2017
Chris Woodard with Shaq on the basketball court at Shaq's Georgia home. The two met when Woodard was in the Army in Germany and Shaq's father asked him to teach his some how to play basketball. The rest is history.(Photo: Submitted)
Chris Woodard was cut from the basketball team when he was a freshman.
He got discouraged and kind of gave up on it until his senior year at York High, 1983. He had been working, bringing in some money to help out his mom, but his last year of high school, his mom encouraged him to go out for the team again. He loved playing basketball, and his mother thought he had helped her out so she should support him in doing something he enjoyed.
He made the team.
When he graduated, he joined the Army and found himself stationed in Wildflecken, a small training base in the middle of Germany called "Top of the Rock." It wasn't a cherry assignment; the base was remote, the air was thin and the weather extreme.
He was an administrative specialist, doing paperwork during the day and, in his free time, playing for the base basketball team, a 6-3 forward known for his low game and sweet jump shot. He had a long wingspan and played with heart. He always said, "It ain't how big you are; it's how much heart you got." They called him Ice because his game resembled that of NBA great George Gervin, the Iceman.
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While playing ball, he met a supply sergeant named Phil Harrison. Harrison ran the gym and watched a lot of the ball games. He admired Woodard's game and one day asked him whether he'd like to coach his son, teach him how to play the game. He thought his kid had potential, but he needed to learn the finer points of the game and have a fire lit under him.
The kid's name was Shaquille O'Neal.
O'Neal was about 6-7 or 6-8, just 13 or 14 years old at the time. The kid had size but didn't know much about playing basketball. His footwork was bad. He couldn't dunk. Like Woodard, he'd been cut from the team his freshman year of high school. Football was his sport. But he was growing out of football and into basketball.
Woodard was tough on the kid, drilling him on the finer points of playing the low post, teaching him the drop step, a staple of the low game. He taught the kid how to handle the ball, that just being a big guy wasn't enough; you had to know how to play the entire game.
The kid worked hard. Woodard pushed him. He taught him to play with attitude, telling him if you instill fear in the man guarding you, you've already won. He didn't let the kid take the easy way out. Woodard was hard on him.
The kid told him he was going to make it, big time, play college ball and maybe, one day, in the NBA. Woodard told him you have to work pretty hard to get there. Those guys who make it, you only see what they do on TV; you don't see the kind of work they have to put into the game to get to that level.
In 1987, Woodard transferred out of Wildflecken and left the Army.
Shaq, well, went on to become Shaq.
Over the years, Woodard followed Shaq's career – from Louisiana State University, where he was a two-time all-American and national player of the year, to the NBA, where he was rookie of the year and the first rookie to be named to the all-star team since Michael Jordan and went on to win championships and become a larger-than-life figure in American culture, a star well beyond the basketball court.
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Woodard would watch Shaq's games on TV with friends, and when Shaq would execute his drop-step move, elbowing and spinning his way past a defender for a dunk, Woodard would point out that he taught Shaq that move. "I had something to do with that," he'd say.
His friends, of course, scoffed. They didn't believe him, that some guy sitting on his couch in York, Pa., even knew Shaq, much less taught him anything about basketball. His family knew it was true, but he couldn't convince some of his friends.
He tried to get in touch with Shaq over the years, to no avail. By then, Shaq was insulated from the public. A lot of people wanted his attention, and he had people whose jobs were to keep them at bay, only letting in people Shaq wanted in.
Then, on Dec. 22, 2015, Woodard heard Shaq's Internet radio show, Shaq Fu Radio, would be taking calls from listeners. So he called in. He got put on hold, but eventually, he got through to the call screener just as the show was winding down and Shaq was getting ready to sign off. He told the guy to tell Shaq a guy named Ice was on the line. Shaq said, "The only Ice I know is that guy with the smooth jumper."
Shaq said, via an interview on Facetime, that he was just getting ready to leave the studio when Ice got through. Man, he thought, I haven't talked to that guy in forever. He talked to Woodard and that was that. The relationship had been rekindled.
Shaq told Woodard he was up for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and if he got in, he would like Woodard and his wife to come to the ceremony. Woodard assured him that it was no question of "if" and that he would love to attend the ceremony.
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There was no "if." On Sept. 9, 2016, Shaq was inducted into the hall of fame, and Woodard was there. He was standing by the entrance when Shaq walked in and spotted him, the first time they had seen one another in person in 28 years, and said, "My boy Ice." He bear-hugged Woodard and told those around them, "This is the man I learned my game from."
Woodard remembers saying, "Shaq, I can't breathe."
At one point in his speech, Shaq mentioned three people who "changed the direction of my life." One was his first real coach, Ford McMurtry. Another was his college coach, Dale Brown. And the third was Chris Woodard, the Iceman.
Ice, Shaq said, "was an Army base legend" and he "pushed me to hone my skills." Later, in an interview, Shaq said he wouldn't have become the basketball player and cultural icon be grew into without Ice's tutelage back in Wildflecken. He owed everything to the Iceman for teaching him the game.
Shaq said he idolized Michael Jordan and Julius "Dr. J" Erving, but "I just wanted to be as good as Ice. I wanted to be that good. I didn't want to be like Kareem, or Magic, or Jordan. I wanted to be like Ice."
Woodard and Shaq stay in touch. The week before Easter, Woodard and his wife visited Shaq at his home in Georgia. They played some hoops and reminisced about the old days at Wildflecken.
Chris Woodard visiting Shaq at Shaq's Georgia home the week before Easter. (Photo: Submitted)
Now a young-looking 51, Woodard still plays basketball. He is a minister with the New Covenant Community Church and works with kids. He and his wife, Pamela, have two kids.
He gives credit to God for putting him back in touch with Shaq.
"It's a blessing that he never forgot me," Woodard said. "All the championships, the MVPs, everything, he remembered me. That I had an impact on his success, that's humbling."
Contact Mike Argento at 717-771-2046 or at mike@ydr.com.
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