Believe in yourself and believe in your dreams and you can do anything.

That was the message delivered to the assembled students at Westgate High School Tuesday by someone who has achieved almost legendary status.

National Basketball Association superstar Shaquille O'Neal dropped by the campus Tuesday morning to speak to the Westgate Tigers basketball team, which won the Class 5A state title in February, spoke to the student body in a 15-minute assembly, then closed out his day in New Iberia with a visit to St. Edward's Elementary.

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"Miss Betty Alexander had given us a call in late spring and said that she was working on getting him down here," said WHS basketball coach Oliver Winston. "She let us know that he was coming and we're excited. It's a pretty awesome event for someone of that caliber to come down and congratulate our kids for the job that they have done.

"It was an awesome opportunity."

Alexander, a family friend of the O'Neal's, used that connection to arrange a visit by the superstar, currently playing center for the Miami Heat franchise.

"I've been knowing Shaq for quite a while," said Alexander. "I thought that he'd be the ideal person to come to New Iberia and speak to the boys on the basketball team and the dream now is a reality.

"I have been working on this visit since Westgate won the championship. This is an inspiration to the boys on the basketball team."

O'Neal, who was one of 50 players named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary Team in 1996, drove to New Iberia and first spent about 10 minutes with the Westgate basketball team congratulating the squad on winning the state championship. Then he spent time addressing the Westgate High student body in the gymnasium.

His message was simple: If you want to achieve great things, you must believe in yourself and work hard to attain those dreams.

The three-time NBA Finals MVP even went into some detail about how growing up he was a juvenile delinquent. He turned his life around to become a star basketball player and started preparing for his life after basketball by working to become a law enforcement officer. To that end he has become a reserve officer in Miami Beach and is an honorary U.S. deputy marshal.

But his first love is still to visit with students to let them know that dreams are attainable.

"Betty Alexander and Jerry Shea (chairman of the LSU Board of Supervisors) are friends of the family," said O'Neal, who played at LSU under Dale Brown. "I was in the area and they called me to come talk to the kids. This is stuff that I do every day. I'm coming in and making the kids smile and reassuring that they can follow their dreams.

"I will always continue to do this. I told everyone way back when that I wanted to be an FBI agent or a U.S. marshal and now I am."

It is a visit that will be remembered for a long time and serve and an inspiration for this year's team.

"Hopefully it gives them that tangible feeling of somebody who is a megastar," said Winston, "where they know that if they keep on the right track and keep doing what they are doing and dreaming that it can happen.

"When you can feel and see and interact with somebody like that, it makes it more real for you. On TV it's so far away, but he was right there shaking hands with them, talking to them. It let them know that they can attain the dream and all they have to do is stay on track.

"He reinforced what we tell them all the time."