When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [116]
"I know, Earv," Scott responded. "If anyone can beat it, it's you."
"I said that, but I didn't believe it," Scott admitted. "From what little I knew about the disease, Magic had been given a death sentence."
One hour later, dressed impeccably in a dark blue suit, crisp white shirt, and an "optimistic" multicolored tie with bright hues, Magic walked up to the same podium where he had accepted his MVP trophy a year and a half earlier. Flanked by Commissioner Stern, Dr. Mellman, Lon Rosen, Jerry West, Jerry Buss, Kareem, Rambis, and Cookie, the NBA's ambassador swallowed hard and told himself, "Remember. Hold it together."
Moments before, Rosen had quickly reviewed what Magic should say. "I'm just going to tell them," Johnson said. "I'm going to tell them I have AIDS."
"But, Earvin," Rosen said, "you don't have AIDS. You have the virus that causes AIDS. Make sure you make that clear. There's a big difference between the two."
Though the press conference was overflowing with reporters, friends, teammates, and Lakers officials, an eerie silence permeated the room. It had the feeling, Buss noted later, of a funeral procession.
"Good afternoon," Johnson said. "Because of the HIV virus that I have obtained, I will have to retire from the Lakers today. I just want to make clear, first of all, that I do not have the AIDS disease. I know a lot of you want to know that. I have the HIV virus. My wife is fine. She's negative, so no problem with her.
"I plan on living for a long time, bugging you guys like I always have. So you'll see me around."
Johnson outlined his plans to be an HIV spokesman. He preached the need to practice safe sex. He was somber but composed. West, his eyes bloodshot from a morning of grieving, marveled at Johnson's ability to contain his emotions.
"Sometimes we think only gay people can get [AIDS], or 'It's not going to happen to me,'" Magic told the rapt audience. "Here I am, saying it can happen to everybody. Even me—Magic Johnson."
The point guard who had come to define the Lakers—and the NBA—stood facing his audience. West's shoulders heaved. Buss teetered forward, his knees buckling. The only reason the Lakers owner didn't collapse was that an alert Abdul-Jabbar grabbed Buss and pulled him upright before he toppled over.
Back in Lansing, Michigan, Christine Johnson summoned her children to the Middle Street home where young Earvin was raised. She asked them to join hands and bow their heads, then told them their brother had been diagnosed with HIV. The Johnson family knelt down in their cramped family room and cried and prayed together. Christine informed her family that she had hired grief counselors to talk with each of them. She warned them that the world of Magic Johnson was about to change. There would be supporters, but there would also be detractors and a hungry horde of media people trying to advance the story.
"We are a family. We will stick together," she advised her children.
"If any of these people say anything, I'm going to crack them upside their heads," said Magic's big brother Larry, his voice quaking.
Most of Magic's friends learned of his condition from his live press conference broadcast on CNN. All of them remember exactly where they were the moment they discovered Magic was HIV-positive.
Mychal Thompson was playing professional basketball in Caserta, Italy, and working on his post moves when former Seton Hall star Anthony Avent grabbed Thompson by the sleeve and misinformed him that Johnson had AIDS and would likely be dead within a year.
"Even my Italian teammates understood the magnitude of that news," Thompson said. "We were devastated."
Former Michigan State star Greg Kelser was in a hotel room in Denver preparing for a broadcast between the Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves for Prime Sports Network when his wife called him and told him to turn on the television. "I was stunned," Kelser said. "It was my first broadcast, and I had been preparing for days, but when we went on the