Dream Team

by Jack McCallum

  To describe Magic’s sexual adventures as “conquests” is to vastly overrate the difficulty with which they came about. Women threw themselves at him, and Magic was a discerning fielder, catching the ones he wanted, letting the others sail by. Remember, too, that he had been a bachelor until the autumn of 1991, though only the woman who was then his fiancée and is now his wife, Cookie, knows what pain his lifestyle caused her during their relationship before they married. But at least his sexual adventures were not technically adulterous.

  I never considered an athlete’s extracurricular sexual activity to be my business—these days it’s practically a beat—and Magic was reasonably discreet. Though there were later revelations that he would sometimes indulge in quickie postgame dalliances in the locker room’s private sauna before presenting himself to soliloquize about, say, the efficiency of the Celtics’ half-court offense, he rarely brought anyone to team functions except Cookie, whom he had been dating for a number of years. His most frequent date was Lakers PR man Josh Rosenfeld. “Magic used to tell me, ‘Josh, you can’t get a date, and I can’t bring anybody else except Cookie because of all the other wives,’ ” Rosenfeld says.

  I have an extremely reliable account of Magic, on one occasion in the late 1980s, arranging multiple trysts at the same time. “You go with me tonight, I’ll see you next week in L.A., and when I get back a month from now you and I will get together,” he said, directing each comment to a different woman. That’s somewhat paraphrased but close to the truth. He handled it like a true point guard, getting this one the ball on a fast break, promising to set up this one next time down the floor, pledging goodies in a future game to a third.

  (It seems necessary to mention that Magic and his generation didn’t invent philandering. Lakers general manager Jerry West, for example, was celebrated for getting around. One day in the late 1980s, as I interviewed West at a Lakers practice session, he shook his head when he came upon a story in that morning’s Los Angeles Times about NBA star Roy Tarpley getting suspended for drugs. “Whatever happened to pussy?” West said, almost to himself, not trying to draw a laugh, just one man ruefully pondering how strange this modern world had become.)

  After the announcement that he was HIV positive, Magic’s crusade began with riotous incongruity. He created a foundation to fight AIDS without including a single gay man or woman. He tossed off corny lines like “Keep your cap on,” a reference to condom use. He urged sexual restraint but his wink-wink proclamations about the number and variety of his affairs seemed to send a different message. Any slings and arrows tossed by the vox populi seemingly bounced off him. “If it had happened to a heterosexual woman who had been with a hundred or two hundred men,” complained tennis star Martina Navratilova, “they’d call her a whore and a slut and the corporations would drop her like a lead balloon.” And what if it had happened to Navratilova, who had paid a heavy price for her bisexual lifestyle? “They’d say I had it coming,” said Navratilova—accurately, it must be added.

  At Sports Illustrated, meanwhile, plans were under way at that time to make Magic the magazine’s first male swimsuit model. He was scheduled to be in the 1992 edition of the annual cash cow/journalistic enterprise. It was the idea of editor John Papanek to feature the upcoming Barcelona Games with the usual cluster of scantily clad women and one superstar Olympian. Magic, whom Papanek had covered in his days on the NBA beat, was his first choice, and Magic had been enthusiastic about it. They would be shooting it soon.

  After Papanek heard the HIV news, his first thought was that the Magic shoot, of course, was history. So he was surprised when he got a call almost immediately from Lon Rosen, Magic’s representative, who said, “Magic wants you to confirm, John, that he’s still going to be in the swimsuit issue. He’s been looking forward to it and doesn’t think this development should change things.” Papanek had the idea that Rosen was presenting it as a condition for future interviews with Magic, including one that my colleague, Roy Johnson, was en route to Los Angeles at that moment to accomplish. Papanek told Rosen that it was a nonstarter and wrote years later in ESPN The Magazine: “I had to give it to Rosen straight.” He told Rosen that Magic was admitting to unprotected sex with lots of women and said, “I don’t think he, or anyone connected with him, will feel good seeing a picture of him in February cavorting in his underwear with bikini-clad women.”

  It took chutzpah for Magic to believe that SI would still want to do the shoot. But, then, it took a particular kind of grace for Magic to not only accept the decision and go ahead with the interview but also, upon seeing Papanek some weeks later, say, “Hey, John, next year can I be in the swimsuit issue?” (It never happened, by the way.) And Magic never brought it up to me in succeeding years, either.

  Eventually, Magic began to pay attention to the drumbreat of criticism. In his defense, remember that this was new ground. He dialed down the cutesy sayings and reached out to the gay community, all seemingly without missing a beat. The man even backpedaled with irrepressibility. Perhaps inevitably, Magic proclaimed: “The further I go with this, the more I believe God picked me. If I didn’t believe that, I’m not sure how I could go on the way I have.”

  I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t cop to sometimes finding it difficult to buy into the whole Magic rap. One could say that Jordan was overly political, but it was more that he was apolitical. I never got the idea that Jordan was anyone else but Jordan. That goes double for Bird. Magic seemed to be a bit contrived, as if he had an on switch that he activated every time a camera was in his radar range. He came close to admitting it himself, stressing that “Magic and Earvin are two different people.”

  But it was hard not to like him. And the world? The world loved him, and when he got the virus the impact was something like that of an earthquake—widespread and devastating, with frequent aftershocks. The Spanish daily El Pais devoted two pages to “The Magic Man: A Living Legend and a Myth in World Sport.” It mentioned the promotional visit that Johnson had made to Barcelona in the summer of 1991—in a setup for photographers, Magic made the “first basket” at the Palau Municipal d’Esports de Badalona, the new Olympic basketball venue—and rued the apparent fact that he would not be playing in the Olympics. All six major television networks in Japan, where basketball was not even a major sport, carried the news. Papers in Sydney, Milan, Oslo, London, and Munich also splashed the story on page one, as did, needless to say, virtually every newspaper in America. All of the stories, including those written by people like me, had the gloomy tone of a pre-obituary.

  Only twenty-four hours after his announcement, the Los Angeles City Hall steps, where Magic had stood as an honored NBA champion five times since 1980, were renamed the Magic Johnson Plaza of Champions; it required a unanimous emergency vote of the city council. Many, like scholastic coaching legend Morgan Wootten of Dematha High School in Maryland, compared Magic’s revelation to the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. UCLA’s John Wooden, the Obi-Wan Kenobi of sports, conjured up the day that Lou Gehrig announced he was dying of a disease that was later named for him.

  As for Magic, well, he did retire, but he never acted like a dying man. He continued to work out at Sports Club L.A., playing full-court basketball and steadily upping his aerobic activity. He gave up red meat and fried foods and loaded up on unsweetened juices (carrot was a favorite), fruits, vegetables, and grilled and broiled chicken and fish. He found an L.A. bakery that specialized in muffins made with honey instead of butter and another place where he bought sugar-free pies. Other HIV victims might’ve gone into seclusion, but Magic filled our lives with the details of his.

  So when it came time for All-Star Weekend in February in Orlando, Magic had been given clearance to play by his doctors and special dispensation from NBA commissioner David Stern. Beyond that, it was clearly a trial balloon for Barcelona, and not everyone was happy. An official from the Australian Olympic Federation recommended that players from his country boycott games against the United States
if Magic was on the team. The senior medical director of the federation’s basketball program said that Johnson presented a “realistic threat” of passing on the AIDS virus. At least one Australian player, center Ray Borner, said that he would accept a silver medal rather than play against Johnson for the gold. (Like that was going to happen. Chuck Daly’s response to Borner’s comment was: “That’s one less team we have to beat.”)

  Cleveland Cavaliers guard Mark Price, an Eastern Conference All-Star who would be playing against Johnson, said: “I think it’s in the back of every player’s mind. We still don’t know much about the virus.” Houston Rockets coach Don Chaney said that Magic shouldn’t play. “If there’s a risk at all,” said Chaney, “I don’t feel that risk should be taken.” Price’s statements were criticized by some because he was a conservative Christian, but how to explain Chaney, an open-minded African American? Or the skepticism about Magic’s playing that was expressed by the Yale-educated Chris Dudley of the New Jersey Nets? Or that of citizen-of-the-world Sarunas Marciulionis, who would be playing against Magic in Barcelona? “When I’m driving to the hoop, I’m bleeding all the time,” said Golden State’s Marciulionis. “I don’t know how AIDS can spread, how fast, how soon.”

  Even some of his Lakers teammates and good friends, Byron Scott and A. C. Green, had expressed their opinion that he should not be allowed to play in the exhibition. (To be clear, it was for different reasons. Scott wanted him to rest and take care of himself; Green, an intensely religious man who was famously saving himself for marriage, argued that the game was for active players.)

  More to the point, as late as mid-January I had quoted an anonymous Dream Teamer in Sports Illustrated as saying: “I don’t see how any of us could feel we were completely safe if he got injured and started bleeding.” So it wasn’t only people outside the United States who didn’t want to go up against Magic in Barcelona—he had at least one on his own team.

  Like many reporters, I did the due diligence, trying to find the truth about a disease that still perplexes us two decades later. Had the Internet been in existence then, one can only imagine the multitude of daily reports that would’ve seen the light of day—Magic’s T-cell count would’ve been as widely reported as the weather.

  In the end, of course, Magic, being Magic, shut his ears to “all the negativity.” He wanted to play in the All-Star Game and there was never a doubt that he would not accept Stern’s invitation that a thirteenth player be added to the Western roster. He got a two-minute standing ovation from the crowd, hugs from teammates and opponents. It was Isiah Thomas who motioned that everyone should come forward, and that included a game Mark Price. Perhaps some of the players felt more at ease since they had been tested for AIDS and had come up negative. Of the twenty-five All-Stars present on that afternoon, only Houston’s Otis Thorpe and Detroit’s Dennis Rodman said they had not been tested, while only Isiah and James Worthy would not comment.

  Naturally, Magic put on a legendary performance, scoring 25 points to go with 9 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals to win the MVP award in a 153–113 Western Conference rout. The afternoon included a long three-pointer with time running out, and here’s what I wrote the following week in Sports Illustrated:

  There he stood, twenty-four feet from the basket, a ball in one hand, a sprinkle of magic dust in the other. As the game clock wound down, Magic Johnson wound up and let fly. “I figured the shot was in,” said the San Antonio Spurs’ David Robinson, his Western Conference teammate. “He’s been writing this script for years.” Of course it went in, a three-pointer no less. And thus ended, in impossibly emotional and dramatic fashion, Sunday’s 42nd NBA All-Star Game, better known as The Earvin Johnson Consciousness-Raising Love-In. Bank on this: You’ll never see anything like it again.

  That was laying it on a bit thick, but it was a moment for thickness. The defense, as in most All-Star Games, was less than assiduous, and that went double for defending Magic, either because players were giving him a break, didn’t want to get near him, or a little bit of both. On his final three-pointer, he was “guarded” by his good buddy at the time, Isiah, who gave him all the space, in effect, encouraging him to launch the shot.

  When the evening was over and Magic had talked to his last reporter, smiled for his last photographer, and signed the last autograph for the last fan, it became clear what single aspect of Earvin Johnson was irreplaceable. It was his capacity for giving everything to the game. Bird couldn’t do it—he never liked the media attention as much as Magic and didn’t deal well with cloying fans. Jordan couldn’t do it—he treasured his free time and had become more and more zealous about guarding it. It was impossible not to contrast the way Jordan and Magic approached All-Star Weekend, the former renting a condo outside the Walt Disney World complex so that he could more easily get to the golf course, Magic at the designated NBA hotel, where he signed autographs for maids and busboys. And while Magic met with the press for three hours at the media sessions, Jordan skipped the mandatory gathering to play golf.

  Once Magic played in the All-Star Game and neither he nor anyone on the court collapsed and died in spectacularly operatic fashion, we began to assume that Magic would be in Barcelona, Australians be damned. In retrospect, what is astounding was the degree to which Magic controlled the story. He was going to play; it was his decision, and who the hell was going to stop him? The NBA and USA Basketball had quietly done their homework after his announcement, enlisting a blue-ribbon panel of AIDS specialists, and could find no one who recommended that Magic be benched. The decision on whether Magic could play was never even put to an official vote within the committee. Magic was selected, Magic said he was playing, and no doctor said he couldn’t. So Magic was playing.

  Hard upon the heels of the All-Star Game followed what was surely the weirdest ceremony in NBA history—Magic’s retirement gala at which he kinda, sorta hinted that he wasn’t retiring. During his speech, Magic, the coy lover, told the crowd: “If I decide to come back, I hope you won’t be upset and we have to do this all over again.” The fans went crazy. Later he mused about what the comeback scenario could be, perhaps not playing back-to-back games, perhaps not playing as many minutes, perhaps skipping some road trips.

  I was absolutely convinced at that point that Magic was coming back full-time, barring some rule from the NBA that would keep him from doing so. He said all this in his breezy happy-ringmaster tone, sobering only when he was asked if he was leading the Lakers on. “That’s what they’ve got, so they can take it or leave it,” he answered.

  Now, that is a man with chutzpah.

  So by the time the Dream Teamers gathered in San Diego, Magic was, for all intents and purposes, back. Whatever fears his fellow Dream Teamers had about playing with him, they didn’t mention them when they got together in San Diego. Such was the fantasy-land atmosphere of the Dream Team. Magic was here, and when Magic is around, it’s his world and his team.

  INTERLUDE, 2011

  THE MAGIC MAN

  “It’s My Mind-Set That’s Kept Me Alive”

  Dallas, Texas

  “I guess I was the blessing,” says Magic Johnson, “and then I was the curse.”

  The subject is HIV. We are sitting in the lobby of a Dallas hotel during the NBA Finals, which Magic is working as an analyst for ABC. His broadcast work gets mixed reviews; his corporeal presence does not. Everybody likes him. Everybody always has. Over the course of a two-hour conversation, a dozen people approach him, most expressing some kind of connection to him, tacit or otherwise. He is the sports world’s six-degrees-of-separation guy. I used to be in business with Quincy Jones and I know you and Quincy are close.… Do you remember? I had a physical therapy business in L.A.… We have a friend in common, a hedge fund guy named … And Magic Johnson will nod and say he remembers even if he doesn’t remember, because that’s his MO.

  “The blessing was that I came out and announced and everybody started talking about AIDS openly, maybe for the first time,”
Magic says. “Then the curse came because kids started saying, ‘Oh, I can get it and still be like Magic. He’s all over the place. He’s doing fine.’ ”

  Magic feels obligated, as he should, to set the medical record straight.

  “You can’t look at the example of one person and say, ‘I’ll be like that,’ ” he says. “The virus acts differently in everybody. Hopefully the meds work and there’s early detection. But you can’t be sure. Early detection is the key because full-blown AIDS is still a death sentence. It’s important that people get checked.”

  Over the years, as Magic remained in the spotlight, broadcasting and expanding his business empire, his weight went up and down with the regularity of Oprah’s. He looked big, then he looked normal, then he looked real big, then he looked okay. At this writing, he looks great, having shed twenty-five pounds. “The road used to kill me,” he says, “because I snacked a lot. And sweets are a weakness. That will never change. But I’ve cut back. Protein shake in the morning, maybe oatmeal.” Whenever possible, he arises at 4:30 a.m. to stretch. Then he goes to the gym and runs outside or on the treadmill. The regimen he learned as an athlete helps him with the regimen he needs as someone living with HIV. “Thank God my knees and hips are okay,” he says.

  Like millions of people around the world living with the virus, he says that he has no manifest medical repercussions. He takes his cocktail of three drugs in the morning. “I forget once in a while, like everybody does,” he says, “but never two days in a row. Anyway, the drugs are still working in your body even if you forget.”

  I suppose that I should dwell on Magic’s business empire, the fact that he has an equity fund with $550 million in cash and a billion-dollar real-estate fund and that he wants to help bring an NFL team back to Los Angeles and that he’s now a global player who gets Warren Buffett with one ring of the cell. That’s what’s going on now, anyway. But that doesn’t interest me much except to juxtapose what Magic has accomplished with an anecdote from Scott Price’s excellent Sports Illustrated story about Scottie Pippen in 1999. Price describes Pippen, by then a Portland Trail Blazer, musing about franchise owner Paul Allen.