In a locker-room moment that could only come from a personality as larger than life as Shaquille O’Neal, former Lakers athletic trainer Gary Vitti recently shared one of the most outrageous stories of his career.
Appearing on Byron Scott’s Fast Break, Vitti described the day he made what he called a “big mistake”, stepping up to a urinal without realizing that trouble was lurking just a few feet away.
“I’m peeing … good flow, everything’s good,” Vitti recalled with a laugh. “All of a sudden, I hear my name being called behind me. I turn around and he’s standing up … holding a piece of toilet paper after he wiped his butt with it.”
Realizing instantly that this was not going to end well, Vitti tried to shut the situation down.
“I said it about as nicely as I possibly could … ‘I’m not looking at it.’” But Shaq, in full prank mode, wasn’t about to give up. “Look at it,” Vitti remembers him insisting.
What happened next was pure chaos. Without warning, Shaq flung the used toilet paper at him, leaving Vitti stunned and disgusted.
The story, as wild as it sounds, fits perfectly into the legend of Shaquille O’Neal, a man whose humor has always been as oversized as his frame. For Vitti, who spent decades in the Lakers’ locker room through Showtime, the Shaq-Kobe years, and beyond, it was just one of many moments where the line between camaraderie and insanity blurred.
