NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal to donate 1,000 laptops, shoes to Wichita youth charity

Wichita children are soon to be the beneficiaries of the generosity of Shaquille O’Neal.

In his appearance at Koch Arena on Saturday night for a Wichita charity basketball game, the NBA legend and Hall of Famer promised to buy 1,000 laptops and 1,000 pairs of his new “Shaq Attaq” Reebok shoes for Storytime Village, a Wichita-based children’s literacy nonprofit organization, to distribute.

The promise didn’t come without a stipulation, however.

The catch? In his halftime sit-down interview, the Big Diesel, a children’s book author who made the stop in Wichita to help promote children’s literacy with the local charity, went off-script and challenged a Sedgwick County sheriff deputy to dunk in the second half of the charity basketball game to earn the donation.

Sitting in his courtside seat on his team’s bench, Vince Folston couldn’t believe it when O’Neal called him out on the microphone in front of the crowd.

“I actually went over to him at halftime and said, ‘Hey Shaq, sorry about missing that dunk,’” Folston told The Eagle. “He told me he wasn’t going to give me an autograph until I got a dunk.

“And then he gets on the mic and starts pointing at me and I’m thinking, ‘Oh man, here we go.’ He says he’s going to get 1,000 laptops and 1,000 shoes for the kids if I dunk. Like wow, thanks for putting that kind of pressure on me, Shaq. I’m an old man now. I can’t really get up and dunk like I used to.”

Folston, who is 6-foot-5 and played football and basketball at Southwestern College from 2012-15, was up for the challenge.

After a few missed dunks early in the second half, the opposition cleared the paint for Folston to dribble freely to the basket and on his third try, Folston slammed the ball through the rim to bring a standing ovation from the crowd.

By that time, O’Neal had already been whisked away for a meet-and-greet with fans after the game, but Folston was beaming with pride afterward with his once-in-a-lifetime story involving one of the most famous basketball players in history.

“I told the sheriff I was going to make him proud, so here you go,” Folston said, laughing. “That’s a pretty awesome feeling to be able to get 1,000 free laptops and shoes for the kids.”

But before any of those laptops or shoes could arrive, O’Neal had already made the difference in one child’s life on Saturday night.

Teddy, a 10-year-old Peterson Elementary School student, and his mother, Jennifer Ghione, managed to catch O’Neal’s attention while he was sitting courtside at the game during the first half.

O’Neal initially waved and threw up a peace sign to the mother and son, but after some pleading, O’Neal granted special access to Teddy past his security to meet the 7-foot-1 star.

“It was so amazing, absolutely amazing,” Ghione said. “I was so choked up. I was shaking while I was recording him going down there. I was going to do anything possible for my son to meet him because we couldn’t get a meet-and-greet ticket. So that was absolutely a dream come true.”

Teddy handed O’Neal his gray hoodie to autograph, then had the opportunity to take a selfie with one of his basketball idols. By the time he exited Koch Arena, the picture was already saved as his lock-screen picture on his iPhone.

As soon as he was done taking the picture, Teddy turned around and his jaw immediately dropped. He was in awe of what just happened, so much so that his jaw was agape all the way back to his seat with his mother.

“It was like a dream,” Teddy said. “It doesn’t seem real. I still don’t think it’s real.”