Shaquille O'Neal learned how to handle a full-court press back in college, and he's used to dealing with sports reporters in the locker room after games. But here he was, postgame at Madison Square Garden, facing a crowd of movie critics. People who use words like "nuance" with a straight face and think a double zone is somewhere you're not allowed to park.
Shaq was clearly enjoying himself in the presence of this critical mass, gathered to discuss his big-screen debut in "Blue Chips." Certainly, it was a more pleasant topic than the way Patrick Ewing (32 points, nine rebounds) had just taken him to school in a sloppy, lopsided game between the New York Knicks and the Orlando Magic. Of course, when you're somewhere to the north of 7 feet and more than 300 pounds, any screen debut is going to be big. And what critic could summon up the nerve to attack the Shaq?The truth is, "Blue Chips," a probing and incisive look at corruption in big-time college basketball, casts O'Neal in a part that isn't much of a stretch. In William Friedkin's film, Shaq is Neon Bodeaux, which may sound like a New Orleans clip joint but is actually the name of a giant whose raw skills and unlimited potential have Division I coaches salivating. Neon is, thus, not far removed from Shaq and his backboard-breaking days as the center of national attention at Louisiana State.
At 21, O'Neal is already an entertainment conglomerate, and his thunder-dunking arrival in a theater near you (you'll hear the film even if you never see it) is just an extension. Shaq has a hit rap album to go with his burgeoning career in commercials, where his contradictory combination of menacing strength and megawatt smile peddles Pepsi and Reeboks. It's not hard to see why Ewing, whose own image is simply sullen and menacing, delighted in tossing in baseline jumpers all afternoon while Shaq watched helplessly.
At a crowded media gathering after the Feb. 6 game, Shaq was joined by Orlando teammate and co-star Anfernee Hardaway; director Friedkin; J.T. Walsh, who plays a corrupt booster in "Blue Chips," and former Boston Celtics great Bob Cousy, who takes the part of the athletic director.
Instead of the usual sports inspirational or a dippy comedy like "The Air Up There," "Blue Chips" takes a hard, if sometimes preachy, look at the often down-and-dirty business of recruiting in major college basketball programs. It's a much more honest portrait of dishonesty than Robby Benson managed in "One on One." Nick Nolte is Coach Pete Bell, whose squeaky-clean principles are sorely tested when his team goes 14-15 one season. Bodeaux, Hardaway's Butch McRae and the other coveted blue-chippers represent both professional salvation and extreme moral compromise.
The assembled critics and entertainment writers included Gene Siskel, whose celebrated thumb Shaq insisted had been raised skyward by an earlier screening of "Blue Chips." Siskel remained noncommittal, and retaliated by asking Cousy about Shaq's lousy free-throw shooting percentage.
The athletes on the dais represented hoops history and the dizzying change in the economics of pro sports. Cousy recalled that he had retired from the Celtics as the highest-paid player in basketball at $30,000 a year. For the single game he had just played, O'Neal earned $46,000.
"There's been a slight escalation, you may have noticed," Cousy observed drily.
With these kinds of dollar signs flashing at talented kids, it's not surprising that the pressure and undercover payments start early. Naturally, people wanted to know what had happened with O'Neal and Hardaway - players of a caliber to get a team to the promised land of the Final Four.
"In some programs, it goes on," said O'Neal. "It never went on for me. I was taught by my mother never to sell my soul. I can remember going to some colleges where guys drove up in Benzes and BMWs. Billy Friedkin reflected on that."
Hardaway, who came out of Memphis State, added that exposing the hypocrisy and greed that surround rogue programs might put some fear into corrupt coaches and boosters.
"It does go on, people getting paid to go to schools," said the Magic guard. "It's like they don't worry about their education anymore. They just worry about what they're going to get out of college."
"It's a bottom-line business now," said Cousy. "`Blue Chips' is the first time it's been exposed - the cesspool of a problem we have with college athletics. It's been developing for 30 years. There have been many exposes in print, but I think this is the first time it's been the focus of a motion picture."
Friedkin, director of "The Exorcist" and "The French Connection," is a lifelong hoops junkie. He works out with the Boston Celtics whenever he gets the chance and can remember playing basketball with a beach ball in his living room when he was a little boy. His love for the game is obvious from the scintillating basketball he has filmed.
The script of "Blue Chips" is by Ron Shelton, the man behind "Bull Durham" and "White Men Can't Jump," and it had been kicking around Hollywood for a dozen years.