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During a recent appearance on Live with Regis and Kelly, basketball player, Shaquille O’Neal, expressed interest in becoming the sheriff of Broward County. He jokingly told Regis that he would make him his undersheriff.
Here’s the story:
A towering figure from the world of sports – 7-foot-1 basketball star Shaquille O’Neal – is musing about taking on a towering figure in Broward politics: Sheriff Ken Jenne.
The Miami Heat center tosses around the idea of seeking a sheriff’s job almost as frequently as he tosses a basketball. He was a little more specific on Monday.
“I probably will run for sheriff in Orlando or Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,” he said during an interview on the Live with Regis and Kelly national television chat show.
Presumably he meant Broward County because Fort Lauderdale doesn’t have a sheriff of its own, but O’Neal couldn’t be reached to comment further, despite an e-mail to his publicist and a telephone message left with his agent’s office.
O’Neal, 35, didn’t say when he’d run. The job next opens in 2008, and again in 2012.
O’Neal clearly has an interest in law enforcement. He’s a reserve officer with the Miami Beach police force and identifies himself as a “detective.” He’s also been a reserve officer in other communities.
And he’s often talked about running. In 2002, he told the New Yorker that he wanted to be a police chief or sheriff in Louisiana or Orlando. He said he would run as an independent. In 2004, he discussed running for the Central Florida job with the Orlando Sentinel.
And early in 2006, he told ABC News that “when I am done playing, I will be a sheriff somewhere in some city in some county.”
Possibly not as seriously, he made one personnel pronouncement on Monday’s TV show, promising to make host Regis Philbin, 72, his undersheriff.
Philbin’s interest in the No. 2 spot wasn’t clear. “Sounds good,” he said, and then cut to a commercial.
Jenne, at somewhere between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 8 inches tall, is the most powerful political figure in Broward. Following two years on the County Commission and 18 years in the Florida Senate, he was appointed sheriff in 1998 and elected twice to four-year terms.
A federal grand jury has been investigating the sheriff’s business dealings and Jenne, 60, hasn’t said whether he plans to run again.
The job pays $169,832, somewhat less than O’Neal’s $20 million annual Heat salary.
O’Neal is a resident of Star Island in Miami Beach, but the Miami-Dade County Elections Office doesn’t have any record showing he’s registered to vote. The Broward and Orange County offices don’t have any Shaquille O’Neal registered to vote either.
Mary Cooney, public service director of the Broward Elections Office, said O’Neal could register to vote on the last day of qualifying a candidacy for the job, on June 20, 2008, and immediately file paperwork to become a candidate.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle said the notion of a Sheriff Shaq shouldn’t be dismissed. As someone who’s admired by many people, Naugle said O’Neal might be successful at stemming youth crime.
“I think he would be great,” he said. “He’s demonstrated a real dedication. I don’t think it’s out of the question. … He always seems to have had a clean image, unlike some in sports.”
Jenne said O’Neal would bring something to the job.
“Shaq’s got three of the most important qualities needed to be sheriff: dedication, commitment and team building,” he said. Jenne would prefer to have O’Neal sign up as a Broward Sheriff’s Office reserve deputy — with one catch.
“He’d have to supply his own shoes. We don’t carry his size.”
Tags: shaq, shaquille o’neal, shaquille regis, shaquille sheriff
Shaq what is with the cowboy hat, that is emberassing