Associated Press - Tuesday November 6, 2001
John Nadel, AP Sports Writer

Exactly 10 years ago - Nov. 7, 1991 - many thought that one of basketball's most dazzling players had been handed a death sentence.

He stood at a packed news conference at the Forum, the scene of his many triumphs with the Los Angeles Lakers, and announced he was retiring at 32 because he had the AIDS virus.

Now, he takes the AIDS cocktail - combinations of medications that have kept some people with the virus from developing acquired immune deficiency syndrome - allowing him to focus on his business, and not just the business of staying alive.

"The medicine has done its thing; I think I've done my part," he said last week. "And God has done his part. It's mind over matter, too. I've never felt I would be sick or get sick. I thought I would be here."

Johnson wasn't just any basketball player. He was one of the best ever, revolutionizing the game as a 6-foot-9 point guard.

Just as he would change the face of AIDS around the world.

"He was just as concerned about other people as he was with himself," recalled longtime friend Lon Rosen, Johnson's agent from 1987-98. "He was concerned about himself, but he said he was going to use this as a way to educate people.

"He did, and continues to do so."

When Johnson made his announcement, most people didn't understand the difference between someone being HIV positive and actually having AIDS.

"I really thought, just like everybody else basically, that at a certain point it would start deteriorating his body, he would just be a shell of what he was," said Ken Turner, a close friend of Johnson's for 25 years. That certainly hasn't been the case.

Now 42, Johnson is a most busy man. Most of his time is spent in business, where through his Johnson Development Corp., he has worked to bring economic development to troubled urban areas by opening his trademark Magic Johnson Theaters, Starbucks coffeehouses and T.G.I. Fridays restaurants.

And just last month, he added to his menu of business ventures with the purchase of the Fatburger restaurant chain.

Hollywood super agent Michael Ovitz, who served as a mentor of sorts to Johnson during his playing days, isn't surprised.

"He's an amazing man, I saw that immediately," Ovitz said. "I worked with him for years, I speak with him all the time. Years ago, I gave him a bunch of books and magazines to read, I set him up with some meetings. He was like a sponge. "The end results speak for themselves, look at what he's done."

Johnson - who believes he got the AIDS virus by having unprotected sex with women - exercises on a daily basis, and still plays basketball. Last Friday night, he led his all-star team of several former NBA players against Michigan State in an exhibition game in Lansing, where his parents and Turner still live.

And Johnson is a vice president with the Lakers, for whom he coached briefly and made two comebacks since his initial retirement.

"His announcement was huge, particularly for African Americans," said Phill Wilson, the founder of the African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute in Los Angeles. "The day he announced, my voice mail shut down because there were so many calls.

"His announcement showed AIDS was not just a white disease, not just a gay disease. And that was critical. He's been a remarkable role model, as a human being, an African American, a man living with the HIV."

And living in excellent health, according to Dr. Michael Mellman, Johnson's personal physician for the last 20 years.

"There's nothing experimental, nothing high-tech," Mellman said of Johnson's medication. "Anyone who can afford health care can afford what he's doing. He's as healthy as he looks."

Mellman declined to discuss the medication because he did not want other HIV-infected patients to change their regimen to copy Johnson's. As for the future, Johnson has given every indication he'll continue his business endeavors.

And healthwise?

"We have no idea," Mellman said. "AIDS and the virus have only been around a couple decades. Ten years ago, we didn't know what to expect, so there were no expectations, only questions. I'll take every 10 years he gets, and hope we don't get surprised along the way. And that's just because we don't know enough."

Johnson led Michigan State to the NCAA championship as a sophomore in 1979, and the Lakers to the first of their five NBA titles in the 1980s as a rookie the following year.

The capper came in the sixth game of the NBA Finals. With Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sidelined with a sprained ankle, Johnson had 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists in a series-clinching victory over the Philadelphia 76ers. Johnson was three months shy of his 21st birthday at that time.

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo was an assistant under Jud Heathcote when Johnson played at the school. It was Izzo who told Heathcote of the bad news 10 years ago.

"He was just sick, he didn't say much," Izzo said. "It was like a bad rumor that turned out to be true."

Johnson made his first comeback in 1992, shortly after playing in the Olympics. Some of his Olympic teammates, most notably Karl Malone, expressed discomfort playing against him, so Johnson retired again before the season began.

Years later, Malone said: "Maybe I shouldn't have said that, but I meant what I said. You're young, you don't know a lot of information on it. I said what I said."

Johnson's second comeback began Jan. 30, 1996, and lasted the second half of the 1995-96 season before he retired for the final time. At that stage, people knew much more about the virus and AIDS.

Since then, Johnson has immersed himself in the business world along with family - his wife, Cookie, and three children. None have tested positive for the virus.

Although not a major AIDS activist, Johnson still contributes time and energy, serving as event chair and master of ceremonies at a major AIDS fund-raising event in late September, as he has done for years.

Wilson and Hattie Babbitt, executive director of AIDS Action in Washington, were effusive in their praise of Johnson, but both pointed to a negative aspect involving the present.

Wilson mentioned an article in Ebony Magazine several years ago saying Johnson was cured, which Wilson emphasized is not the case.

And Babbitt said Johnson appears so healthy and has such energy it gives the impression that drugs are a cure.

"His health care is as good as any AIDS patient on the planet Earth," she said. "Most AIDS patients don't have access to that kind of health care. ...

"He has done an enormous service. But in fact, drugs are not a cure. They do have side effects, and they tend to lose their effectiveness. His healthy appearance may lead young people to incorrectly believe it doesn't matter if they get infected."

Perhaps so, but Johnson can only live his life.

"The whole thing with Earvin - what you see is what you get," Turner said.

"He's not pretentious. If he's smiling, he's happy. That's just the way it is. You normally see him smiling because most of the time, he is happy."

Turner remembers the weird feeling he had a few days before Johnson's stunning revelation.

"I was getting up to go to work that particular day, something told me to call him," Turner recalled. "He had been out because he had the flu or something. He got on the phone, I kidded him, `What're you going to do, sit out the whole season because you have a cold.'

"He was talking to Michael Jordan on the other line and said `I have something to tell you, I'll call you back.' He called me, said he was going to have to retire. I couldn't believe it. My thought was: `This is not the way it's supposed to be.'

"I didn't know what to say. After I hung up, I just cried like a baby." Johnson's mother, Christine, said her son has always been a joy to her.

"After we found out about everything, I just prayed about it, left it up to the Lord," she said. "I asked the Lord to let him live to see his kids grow up. I believe he's going to do that. I believe the Lord is going to allow him to be around for a long time."
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