Hello, and welcome to mind of Micah.

Today is part three of the recruitment story of Shaquille O'Neal.

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Continuing on, part three.

The 1989 recruiting class was headlined by a point guard out of Queens, New York named

Kinney Anderson, a sweet shooting guard from Ohio named Jimmy Jackson.

Name guard Bobby Hurley of Jersey City, New Jersey, a Chicago forward by the name of

Dion Thomas, and Alan Houston, a shooting guard at a Louisville.

They were the stars.

Their names appeared in the rankings.

Their mailboxes were stuffed with college letters.

Heading into the summer of 1988, they were all lined up to play at the premier camps,

the likes of Vicaro's ABCD camp, Howard Garfunkel's five-star camp, and Dave Bones blue-chip basketball

camp.

O'Neal would submit his name for two events, the Houston shootout, and the Basketball

Congress International, or BCI Summer Nationals in Tampa, Arizona.

And that is when everything changed.

There wasn't a huge crowd for the Houston shootout, but those who were there couldn't

...