I mentioned here that I was meeting Shaq, but I’m not sure I actually confirmed that I met Shaq. I did. It was awesome.

After I reviewed Shaq’s debut as an art curator, an exhibition at the FLAG Art Foundation in Chelsea, someone from FLAG called me and asked if I would come to a walk-thru of the exhibition hosted by Shaq. Duh. Of course I would. They told me the only condition was that I not ask about Shaq’s injured wrist, since he was there to talk about art.

Wait, I thought: Who the hell would ask Shaq about his injured wrist when he’s guiding a tour of his first gallery exhibition? I want to know what Shaq thinks about art!

Turns out the Big Aristotle is something of a post-modernist, and just sort of kept repeating, “Everything is art.” Because — not sure if you’ve noticed — Shaq is extremely tall and speaks in a very low voice, he is extraordinarily difficult to record on a hand-held voice recorder, so I don’t have many more direct quotes. I asked him if he had thought of an art-themed nickname for himself and he said, “Shaqasso.”

Of course, a reasonably prominent ESPN reporter did ultimately ask Shaq about his wrist injury. Though I realize the guy was just doing his job, it annoyed the crap out of me. Here’s one of the sporting world’s most interesting personalities discussing perhaps his most interesting pursuit yet, and you’re asking him a question you can be almost certain he won’t answer in anything more than vagaries. And I recognize that Shaq’s only famous for basketball and if he were just some massive dude curating an art exhibit who hadn’t been one of the top NBA players of the last 20 years I likely wouldn’t have gone. But c’mon, guy. Shaq’s talking about art. Just, c’mon.

All that said, the moment that deserves merit in the TedQuarters Top 10 Things of 2010 is not that reporter’s question, or mine, or even the walk-thru of the gallery. The No. 5 Top Thing of 2010 is stepping off the elevator into the gallery and having one of the FLAG folks say, “Shaq, this is Ted Berg,” and having Shaq shake my hand with his massive left and subwoof, “Hi, Ted, nice to meet you.”

One of the sad things about the combination of getting older and having this job, I think, is that I’ve become a bit jaded about meeting professional athletes. They’re just dudes and all, even if they’re dudes that are really awesome at sports. But because he has been an NBA star since I was 11, because he is that guy that raps and acts and actually works as a sheriff’s deputy and summons people on Twitter and conducts the Boston Pops, and because he is physically so much bigger than me, Shaq made me feel like a giddy grade-schooler. F@#!ing Shaq, bro. It was sweet.