Shaquille O’Neal helps pay for funeral of 11-year-old boy who died in car accident

Former NBA center and Hall of Fame big man Shaquille O'Neal helped pay for the funeral of an 11-year-old boy who was killed in a car crash in Louisiana earlier this month.

Keshaon Batiste and 12-year-old Trayvon Alexander were in the backseat of a vehicle that crashed into a ditch and hit a tree on April 10.

O'Neal reportedly offered to pay for the expenses of both funerals, according to Lafayette Parish chief deputy Phil Conrad (via KLFY):

Shaq’s good friend and former chief deputy for the Lafayette Parish Marshal’s office Phil Conrad tells KLFY the former NBA star learned of the tragedy through the local news media.

He said Shaq was also sent a link to the Batiste family’s GoFundMe account that had been set up to help with the funeral cost.

“He (Shaq) called me and asked me to reach out to the family on his behalf, and get back with him.” Conrad said.

“When I called him back and told him the family had raised over $3k in a GoFundMe, but was still short of what they needed, he immediately stopped what he was doing and sent the money to me, and I wrote out a check.”

This is not the first act of benevolence from O'Neal as of late. He also paid for laptops for a man in Georgia after the man offered O'Neal condolences for the loss of his sister and former Los Angeles Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant.

For O'Neal, this might have hit closer to home. Shaq played at LSU in college, and still maintains close ties to the Acadania area.

As Conrad said, the Big Diesel has an equally large heart.