What Shaquille O'Neal Warned Jason Kelce to 'Never Do' in Retirement

The Philadelphia Eagles lost a beloved player earlier this month when Jason Kelce announced his retirement after more than a decade with the team. Luckily, he's had the support of his family and friends throughout the process. He's also garnered support from some other retired professional athletes, including the multi-hyphenate Shaquille O'Neal.

Shaq imparted some words of wisdom on the now-retired Eagles center on his podcast The Big Podcast with Shaq last month. "Enjoy your family, brother. I made a lot of dumba-- mistakes to where I lost my family and I didn't have anybody," he said honestly, ragging on himself as "an idiot" who lives in "a 100,000-square-foot house by myself."

The former NBA champ explained what he was trying to do with Kelce in a new interview with People magazine. "What I was telling him was some good information," Shaq said. "And with this world we live in, you release information. Some people will like it, some people won't like it."

He added that he's "not the guy that's looking for feedback, whether it's negative or positive," and would rather stay above the noise. "The only time I respond to feedback is if it's super, super negative or if I've done something crazy, and in that sense, I had done something crazy. So I wanted to explain to him that, don't do this. This is what you should never do." Shaq divorced his wife Shaunie Anderson in 2011, the same year he himself retired from the NBA.

It's only been a few weeks since Kelce made it official that he's leaving the league, but in many ways, he's still acting as if nothing has changed, telling his brother Travis on a March 13 episode of their New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce podcast that retired life so far is "zero different" from when he was employed with the team.

"I've actually still gone down to the facility to get a couple of weight-lifting sessions in," he confessed. "I’m a creature of habit... I feel no different. I'm assuming once, you know, organized team activities (OTAs) start up, and especially once training camp and the season starts rolling around, it'll really start to hit a little bit more. But one week in, yeah, not much different to be honest with you."

He also noted that hearing from retired athletes after his announcement has reassured him of his path forward. "It's been really nice to hear from everybody and the well wishes," he said. “I feel like a lot of the guys that reached out are retired guys because they know… how life-changing it is."

Kelce still plans to work with the Eagles in some capacity, though for now, he seems to be content pretending he's still a player on the team.