JOHNSON, Earvin, Jr. ("Magic")

(b. 14 August 1959 in Lansing, Michigan), star basketball player who led the Los Angeles Lakers to several National Basketball Association championships, successful businessman, and AIDS activist.

Johnson was the sixth of ten children born to Earvin Johnson, Sr., an autoworker, and Christine Johnson, a cafeteria worker. His trademark nickname of "Magic" dates back to his years of playing ball at Lansing's Everett High School. Impressed by Johnson's smiling demeanor and his high-energy, quick-footed style on the basketball court, a local sportswriter dubbed him "Magic" after a game in which he scored thirty-six points, with sixteen rebounds and sixteen assists. The name stuck. In his senior year at Everett, Johnson averaged 28.8 points and 16.8 rebounds per game, leading the team to a 27–1 record of wins and losses and the state championship.

Hopping across town from high school in Lansing to Michigan State University in East Lansing, Johnson proved a real phenomenon. While still a freshman, he tapped those magical playing skills to lead the university's Spartans to their first Big Ten title in nineteen years. When Johnson was a sophomore, Michigan State clinched the National Collegiate Athletic Association title, bringing an offer from the Los Angeles Lakers to turn professional at the end of his second year of college. In a preview of a rivalry that would emerge during his years of playing pro ball, Johnson led his MSU team to victory over Larry Bird and the rest of the Indiana University team in clinching the NCAA title. Unsure what to do, he sought the advice of one of his idols, Julius ("Dr. J") Erving, a star player with the Philadelphia 76ers and a man whom Johnson had never met. Not only did Erving offer his counsel to Johnson, but he also invited the twenty-year-old to Philadelphia to watch the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs. In the end, Johnson decided to pass up the last two years of his college eligibility and enter the 1979 NBA draft. He was tapped by the Lakers as the first pick overall.

Johnson's exuberant play helped transform the Lakers from the lackluster team of its earlier years into a major attraction in Los Angeles, luring thousands of enthusiastic fans to watch the team's winning ways. Among his team-mates on the Lakers, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar served as Johnson's mentor, and together they developed a lively and entertaining style of play that came to be known as "showtime." In 1980 Johnson became the first rookie ever to win the NBA finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. He won the award twice more, in 1982 and 1987. Despite his brilliance on the court, Johnson experienced increasing tension with his teammates in the locker room, set off in large part by a 1981 contract that made him the highest-paid player in the history of professional basketball. Many of his teammates worried that Johnson would gain a de facto role in the management of the team by virtue of his astronomical salary. Their fears appeared to be well founded. Clashing with the Lakers coach, Paul Westhead, over the team's playing style, Johnson publicly requested that he be traded rather than being forced to play in a manner the was working for neither him nor the team as a whole. Instead of butting heads with the powerful Johnson, Westhead quit the team, and Johnson took heat from fans for this display of his clout. The criticism quickly dried up, however, when the Lakers started winning again.

During Johnson's years with the Lakers, the team won five championships, in 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1988. Along the way Johnson, who was six feet, nine inches tall and weighed 215 pounds, also played in a dozen All-Star games, twice winning the MVP award (in 1990 and 1992). By the time he reached the age of thirty, Johnson had turned out two books. The first, an autobiography entitled Magic (1983), combined anecdotal recollections of Johnson's childhood and college years with a journal-like profile recording the events of the 1981–1982 NBA season. Johnson's second book, Magic ' s Touch: From Fast Break to Fundamentals with Basketball ' s Most Exciting Player (1989), is essentially a guide to the game of basketball, although it does contain some autobiographical passages.

One of the great rivalries in NBA history developed between Johnson and Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics. From 1983 until 1988, the Lakers and Celtics dominated the NBA, with either Boston or Los Angeles walking away with the championship every year. During the 1983–1984 season, Magic led the NBA in assists, averaging 13.1 per game, a career high. The Lakers and the Celtics faced off in the NBA finals, but Boston, led by Bird, narrowly won the championship, four games to three. Los Angeles turned the tables the following year, beating the Celtics four games to two. The Lakers failed to make the finals in 1985–1986, but their East Coast rivals won the championship. The 1986–1987 season began with both Bird and Johnson at the top of their form. Johnson, in particular, had taken his game to a new level, averaging 23.9 points per game and leading the NBA in assists with 12.2 per game. Johnson led the Lakers to the NBA's best record with sixty-five wins. At the end of the regular season, he finally won what many considered a long-overdue NBA MVP award. To make this winning season even sweeter, Johnson led the Lakers to victory over the Celtics in the finals, four games to two, winning another MVP award when he was recognized as the outstanding player in the finals. Alex Ward, writing in the New York Times Magazine, offered this assessment of Johnson's amazing abilities on the basketball court: "Johnson is a point guard, the basketball equivalent of a quarterback. He brings the ball upcourt, sets up the plays, runs the fast breaks. His height gives him an advantage over other guards, and his ability to determine in an instant how a play might develop—by now it's a reflex—allows him to take maximum advantage of his teammates' extraordinary quickness."

In November 1991 Johnson stunned the entire nation when he announced publicly that he was retiring from basketball because he had contracted HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the virus that causes AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). At the same time he vowed to work to help educate young people about the dangers of HIV infection, a promise he has worked conscientiously to keep. The year following his startling revelation, Johnson published My Life, another installment in his continuing autobiography, which brings his life up to date and includes the discovery that he had contracted HIV. Johnson followed My Life with a book for teenagers entitled What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS (1992), a straightforward guide to safer sex. The book, with explicit illustrations about what teens can do to avoid infection, came under fire from a number of quarters, the most important of which were a group of three major booksellers who refused to stock it in their stores. Jackson leaped to the defense of his book, explaining that its purpose was to be "real—about everything" in an effort to save the lives of young people who might otherwise expose themselves to unnecessary risks.

Although Johnson's immediate reaction to his HIV diagnosis in 1991 was to retire from basketball, he was back on the court the following year when he agreed to join the 1992 U.S. Olympic "Dream Team." Some of the biggest stars in professional basketball played with Johnson on the gold medal–winning team, including Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, and Michael Jordan. Referring to the excitement generated by the formation of the All-Star team, Johnson told Sports Illustrated: "We have grabbed the world in a way that won't happen again. The excitement of the fans, the excitement of the other players who don't care how bad you beat them as long as they get a picture." During the 1992–1993 basketball season, Johnson returned briefly to the ranks of the Lakers and then signed on with NBC as a commentator for the remainder of the season. Two years later he returned to the Lakers as head coach. Still not willing to turn his back on the game, he rejoined the Lakers team to play thirty-two games of the 1995–1996 season.

A successful businessman who owns a number of movie theaters and shopping malls, Johnson also operates the Magic Johnson Foundation, which not only is involved with HIV/AIDS issues but also works hard to send under-privileged minority young people to college. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife Earleatha ("Cookie") Kelley, whom he married in September 1991. The couple has three children: Earvin III; Andre, Johnson's son from a previous relationship; and Elisa, who was adopted. Both Johnson and his wife believe that he was divinely selected to contract HIV—"God needed someone, and He picked me," he told Sports Illustrated. At first blush, Johnson's claim can seem brash and arrogant, but he has carried himself well in the years since the diagnosis. As Sports Illustrated put it, "Magic, like thousands of others, was a dead man walking, and now he is very much alive. That is a blessing and something close to a miracle."

In a performance almost as impressive as his fancy foot-work, no-look passes, and shooting skills on the basketball court, Johnson has been playing a winning game against HIV since the early 1990s. He has experienced virtually no ill effects from the infection, and some medical professionals consider it unlikely that he will ever show signs of full-blown AIDS. In the years to come Johnson will be remembered best for his brilliance as a basketball player.

An excellent profile of Johnson's early life and career is in his autobiography Magic (1983), written with Richard Levin. With Roy S. Johnson, Magic Johnson compiled a volume of his thoughts about basketball strategy entitled Magic ' s Touch: From Fast Break to Fundamentals with Basketball ' s Most Exciting Player (1989). In My Life (1992), written with William Novak, Johnson brings readers up to date on his life and career, including the diagnosis of HIV. Johnson's primer on safe sex, What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS (1992), also was written with William Novak. A lengthy biographical profile of Johnson is in Newsmakers ' 88 (1989).

Don Amerman