[Steeltrap]

You know I will watch the ESPN show. Since I don't live in Florida, I won't be able to see the Sun sports show.

Shaq hits small screen in big way

by Jim Sarni
Posted April 15 2005

He's the biggest star in South Florida, everyone's favorite jock and a media monster.

Shaquille O'Neal is the focus of two upcoming profile shows, one for Sun Sports and one for ESPN.

Shaq is featured on the latest edition of Inside The Heat, Sun Sports' biography series, tonight at 10. The episode shows Shaq in his younger years and interviews with his high school and college coaches and team-mates. It shows him off the court and at home in Miami.

"I think our producers did a fantastic job of capturing the things in Shaq's life that really make him happy," said Cathy Weeden, Sun Sports VP/GM. "Seeing him with his kids, listening to his mother speak so proudly -- not of just what he has accomplished on the court, but of the person he has become -- is a perspective fans don't often get. Everyone is a Shaq fan when he's on the court, but he's quite the superstar off it as well."

Sun Sports is airing an Inside The Heat marathon Monday from 8-10 p.m. with episodes on Shaq, Dwyane Wade, Damon Jones and Keyon Dooling.

ESPN is putting together a six-episode series (tentative title Shaq: 24/7), which will debut May 24 and run before each game of the Western Conference finals (on ESPN) and the first game of the NBA Finals (ABC). The shows, which were taped from the Christmas game in Los Angeles through the All-Star Game, will follow Shaq on the road and around town. Shaq narrates it, and viewers will see him with his wife and kids, playing Shaq-a-Claus, visiting sick children, hanging out with Jones, shooting a commercial, running errands -- can you imagine running into Shaq buying shaving cream at Target? -- and serving as Grand Marshall of the Three Kings Parade in Little Havana.

Meanwhile, WFOR-Ch. 4 is running a series of profiles on Heat players leading into next weekend's playoffs opener.