One has to wonder, is there enough sand at Hermosa Beach to fully cover Shaquille O’Neal’s size-23 foot? Well, there is only one way to find out: have the former Laker walk the shores of the South Bay beach enclave without his shoes on.

Considered to be the location of some of the deepest sands in all of metropolitan Southern California, Hermosa Beach was the perfect spot for the Great Aristotle to do a little experiment. Naturally, he looked forward to the challenge of his feet going to battle with the Sands of Hermosa.

Thankfully, the basketball player formerly known as the Big Cactus is willing to incorporate a steady dose of sand into his diet.

“I just now added Hermosa Beach sand to my salad. I eat sand,” O’Neal said at a press conference with Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh just before the start of the AVP Hermosa Beach Open last weekend.

The question is: Will O’Neal be willing to go toe-to-toe with the sand while wearing a pink Speedo?

Yeah, imagine that – O’Neal running around Hermosa Beach in a pink Speedo. Makes you wonder if the people living along the southern shores of Lake Erie know what they are in store for when the man who considers himself a living legend spends the better part of the next NBA season as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Such an act in northeast Ohio may earn O’Neal his newest of nicknames: “The Great Mistake by the Lake.”

Last week O’Neal took the ultimate challenge: join forces with Beijing gold medalist and volleyball great Todd Rogers to beat May-Treanor and Walsh in a friendly match of beach volleyball, or pay the price and wear pink Speedos in defeat. So, who, exactly, is making the mistake here?

Well, one mistake this columnist will not make is revealing if O’Neal and Rogers actually lost their match to one of the greatest female volleyball duos to ever grace the sands. Instead, you, the reader, will have to just make like a viewer and find out for yourself what happened on Sunday afternoon at Hermosa Beach, the tales of which were completely chronicled for O’Neal’s new reality television series, “Shaq Vs.” – the show where the future NBA Hall of Famer takes on superstars of other sports.

Sunday afternoon’s rendezvous at the Hermosa Beach Open was Shaq’s first attempt at challenging one of those “other” superstars.

Regardless of what actually happened on the sand, Rogers and Phil Dalhausser definitely saw the lighter side of things a mere minutes after claiming their fourth consecutive Hermosa Beach Open.

“He’s such a big, big guy,” Rogers told Campus Circle. “As Phil said, ‘Did you see how deep he was sinking in the sand?’ I told Misty and Kerri, ‘If you guys are close, run away. Let him kill the ball or whatever, because he will break you.’”

To which, Dalhausser added: “It should be interesting. If Kerri and Misty move Shaq around on the serve, it’s going to be a tough one.”

Regardless of whether O’Neal ends up eating sand while wearing a pink Speedo and trying to justify not being called the next “mistake by the lake,” one error Rogers will definitely not make is exchanging Daulhausser for Shaq.

“No, not any time soon,” Rogers jokingly said. “Shaq’s a good guy, but Phil’s a little more skilled on the volleyball court.”

Rogers clearly knows what he is talking about. After all, he did not just win his 55th AVP event by mistakenly wearing pink Speedos and eating sand.