Shaq gives new Audis to three young men he met on a Gainesville street in 2016

Press release from Basketball Cop Foundation

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – When Shaquille O’Neal met young basketball players in Gainesville in 2016, he made them pledge to listen to their parents and do good in school. When he returned to town yesterday as Grand Marshal for A Very GNV Holiday Parade, he met up with three of those young men, and after learning that each of them had kept their promise to him, Shaq surprised them, telling them that he is buying each of them a new Audi A3!

Basketball Cop Foundation founder Bobby White said, “Shaq is an amazing human who has encouraged these young men to listen to their parents and work hard in school. Nobody expected that these young men would get cars as a reward, but that’s just who Shaq is.”

The saga began in 2016, when Gainesville Police Department Officer Bobby White responded to a call complaining that several teens who were playing basketball “loudly” in the street in front of his house. The caller explained that this was a chronic “Issue” and asked that a patrol officer be dispatched to address the teens and the noise.

White was on patrol, headed to the “incident” location, and found… kids playing basketball. 

White handled the call exactly how he’d handled similar calls in the past, and exactly how officers across the country would have handled the call – not by telling the kids that it was wrong to be playing basketball but by telling them that he had no issue with it. White then proved it by shooting some hoops with them for over ten minutes before leaving to handle a “real” police call. 

Before leaving, White asked the kids if they played there all the time, and they said they played there every day. Planning on coming back with a few more officers for a pick-up game at a later date, White told them he would return with “backup”.

The dash cam video from the call went viral, and although White turned down numerous interview requests from the national media, he agreed to a request from TMZ, which said they would get the NBA involved. After that interview, Shaquille O’Neal made the trip to Gainesville as White’s “backup,” thrilling the kids, who got to make memories of a lifetime playing basketball with “Shaq.”

White went on to found the Basketball Cop Foundation, which connects law enforcement agencies across the country with the kids in their communities, primarily by supplying the agencies with sports equipment. The recipient agency will then in turn donate the equipment to groups of kids in their community through their patrol officers. Not only does the initial donation of the equipment open the door to new relationships, but it gives the Patrol Officers in those areas a place where they know they can interact with kids on a regular basis and continue to build on those relationships.