20 years ago today ...

I was 16, at home, waiting to go up to the school for late basketball practice. My sister called and said what so many said: "Did you hear Magic has AIDS?"

Huh?

Waited for the press conference, where he awkwardly said he "attained" the virus. Went to hoops. Later that night came back downstairs and bawled on the couch for probably an hour. Like everyone else, it was the idea that he was going to be dead in a few years.

But all during the early part of the year something seemed very wrong. He missed the games with the "flu," and it all just seemed...strange. Can still remember watching him run the show at an exhibition in Paris the Lakers played. I believe it was when they got back to America that he received the diagnosis.

That was the tragic part.

Of course, the basketball fan in me did eventually start thinking, especially as the Lakers stumbled that whole season and Showtime was truly dead, even if the fastbreak had died about two years earlier. The Lakers had signed Sedale Threatt and he was going to be the best backup point guard the Lakers had employed since Cooper was in his prime. The year before, in the playoffs and Finals, Magic hardly got a break as Larry Drew would come in and mess everything up. Would they have stopped the Bulls the following seasons? Impossible to tell. Probably not. But if Worthy had been healthy in '91 - played with a severely sprained ankle he suffered against Portland - and if they hadn't squandered a 13-point lead in Game 3, I think they would have had a shot that first season.

Portland won in 1992 - a team the Lakers ousted the year before, with a weaker team than they would have had that season. They might have squeezed out a 6th title.

The night after the announcement I think I watched Game 4 of the '87 Finals two times and Game 7 of the '88 Finals. And cried again. Not because of the basketball. But because I again realized Magic was going to die.

Some classic SI pieces over the years:

After the first title:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1123461/index.htm

As he sought redemption in 1985:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119455/index.htm

Larry and Magic, older:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1140657/index.htm

McCallum after the retirement:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1140268/index.htm

Gary Smith's classic after Magic returned in 1996.:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1007724/index.htm

And BYH, if I remember correctly, I think the statement on Arsenio got big cheers from the audience.

"Not Gay!!! Who-whooooo!!"

And then of course Magic wrote his autobiography that detailed his love of fucking - women.

 

Watched the press conference with a group of fellow employees at the station I was working at.

It was mentioned above on this thread that there were major advances in treatment by 1991. I sure don't remember anything like that, at all. We all assumed the worst for him.

Who was it who didn't want to play with/against him? Was that Malone?

 

Magic was answering speculation by many fans and those in the media. Kind of drove home the fact that HIV is not restricted to the homosexual community.

Magic's press conference featured maybe the worst word choice ever in a major press conference.

"Because of the HIV virus that I have attained . . ."

The main one was Malone. He was a real loudmouth about it.

Which is why it was so distaeful when he tried to gravy train a title off Shaq and Kobe. Least upsetting Lakers Finals loss of my lifetime.

 

I could be totally off base on that. I went to college in the mid to late '90s, and I remember by that time talking in classes and so forth about advances in treatment. But I don't know the precise timeline. I'm pretty sure AZT was being used by the time of Magic's announcement, so there was at least some halting of the disease's progress, right?

 

Yeah, Magic returned in 1992 and during the preseason Malone expressed his concerns. Then Magic got cut during an exhibition game against Cleveland. Retired again.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/07/sports/pro-basketball-johnson-says-malone-comments-hurt.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/01/sports/basketball-johnson-s-return-to-league-isn-t-welcomed-by-some.html

 

I was working at the Press-Enterprise as one of several "part-time" preps reporters and it was immediately decided that we needed 17 stories about the announcement. I was told to go out to high schools and "find some kids you know from your beat," and write about their reactions. It was still football season, so you couldn't just walk into gyms and find random practices, so I wound up phoning every basketball kid whose number I had. I got one kid, but he just unloaded about how he had a picture on his desk in his room of him with Magic at basketball camp the summer before. The kid was a point guard and went on to play Pac-10 ball and patterned his game after Magic. It didn't wind up being a long story, but there was so much emotion in it.

I remember being especially moved by someone's column the next day -- I think it was Mark Whicker. I've been trying to find columns from that day for the last week, but have struck out.

 

There were two big problems in this country in 1991. First, homosexuality was not accepted by the average American. It was considered by many to be a horrible thing. And many gay men and women were still in the closet. Thus, people wanted to clear the air if they were as question as to their heterosexuality. Magic Johnson got caught up in society's scope. People were scrutinizing him. He didn't want people to dislike him. So he cleared the air.

Secondly, many uninformed people still thought only gay men could contract HIV. As sad as it is to say, there were some people who had no interest in fighting AIDS until they discovered that it wasn't just a disease contracted by gay men and drug addicts.

For the record, I was in my dorm room when the news broke, and I believe I spread the word around our dorm floor. Within a few minutes, everyone was tuned to the news. I was a freshman at the time. I believe I called home that night to discuss the news with my mom.

 

HIV drug treatment went through quite an experimental phase in the late 1980s and early 1990s. AZT was approved by the FDA in 1990. Some of more notable AIDS deaths (Ryan White, Freddie Mercury, Liberace) occurred just a few years before AZT came onto the scene. It was so new in 1991 that nobody was all that sure how well it worked. That is why almost everyone thought Magic was sure to die. But the drugs kept his HIV from progressing, and he received additional help from subsequent breakthroughs in drug treatment.

 

Here's something I always wondered: did he mean to say "attained" or "obtained" and misspoke? Bad word choice either way, but I've always wondered.

 

I was at my first news job, with the Dallas Times Herald, with many other staffers gathered around the overhead televisions.
It was a complete shock to me, since I'd followed the Lakers since 10th grade and loved Pat Riley's teams.
My sister tested positive some 6 years later for HIV and has since died.
It's a bitch of a disease to be associated with, whether it's HIV or full-blown AIDS.

 

I wasn't the Lakers writer but I was sent to the Forum to help out with the coverage. I took a seat in the second row and looked around as I was getting ready to sit down. I was right in front of Elizabeth Glaser, wife of Michael Paul Glaser from "Starsky & Hutch." She had AIDS (from a contaminated blood transfusion during child birth) and was very prominent in fundraising and disseminating information. My biggest memory from the day, aside from the announcement itself, was when she started coughing. I remember feeling very uncomfortable with her sitting behind me and coughing.

 

I'm just glad you don't hear about people dying of AIDS much anymore.