He Became Bff’s With His Most Hated Rival
Magic Johnson will forever be linked to fellow NBA Hall of Famer Larry Bird. Their fabled rivalry began in the classic 1979 NCAA title game where Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores 75-64. The stakes were raised when they became the franchise faces of the Lakers and Celtics, battling it out over the next decade in one of sports’ fiercest tug of wars. “The one thing I hate in life… is the Boston Celtics,” said Johnson in ESPN’s documentary Celtics/Lakers: Best of Enemies.
The superstars’ fiery relationship cooled after filming a 1985 Converse commercial filmed in French Lick, Ind., Bird’s hometown. “His mom gave me the biggest hug and hello, and right then she had me,” Johnson told NPR. “Then Larry and I sat down for lunch, and I tell you, we figured out we’re so much alike. We’re both from the Midwest, we grew up poor, our families everything to us, basketball is everything to us. So that changed my whole outlook on Larry Bird.”
Their relationship grew to the point where Bird was one of the first people Johnson called when he was diagnosed with HIV. “As strong as I appeared to be, I still needed a friend to just say, ‘Hey man, I’m here, I’m supporting you,” recalled Johnson, who has since developed a lifetime friendship with Bird.
Sexual Intercourse With A Virgin Will Cure Aids
The myth that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS is prevalent in South Africa. Sex with an uninfected virgin does not cure an HIV-infected person, and such contact will expose the uninfected individual to HIV, potentially further spreading the disease. This myth has gained considerable notoriety as the perceived reason for certain sexual abuse and child molestation occurrences, including the rape of infants, in South Africa.
Magic’s Greatest Contribution To Music
Magic Johnson has a bit of an old-school vibe to him. A lot of people end up liking the music they listened to in college for life, but Johnson goes a bit further than that. He sang the praises of Otis Redding, and made sure that when he checked out Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, everybody knew it. Of course, there was also a business component. According to Billboard, Magic Johnson Music worked in conjunction with MCA Music, scored R& B hits with Avant, and had music management deals in place with Boys II Men in the late 90s. So obviously he likes his music, but nothing compares… nothing compares… to Prince.
Johnson shared a story on Jimmy Kimmel Live! about playing basketball with Prince. “He talked so much trash he thought he had a real jump shot,” the former NBA legend told the late night host. Sure, against one of the greatest basketball players ever Prince couldn’t hang, but against mere mortals like Charlie Murphy? That’s a different story. Johnson also told of Prince asking him to hold a private screening at one of his Magic Theaters in Los Angeles at 2 a.m., which Johnson did and to which Prince, and a busload of his friends, showed up in pajamas. There are never enough Prince stories the internet thanks you, Magic.
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There Is No Aids In Africa As Aids Is Nothing More Than A New Name For Old Diseases
The diseases that have come to be associated with AIDS in Africa, such as cachexia, diarrheal diseases and tuberculosis have long been severe burdens there. However, high rates of mortality from these diseases, formerly confined to the elderly and malnourished, are now common among HIV-infected young and middle-aged people, including well-educated members of the middle class.
For example, in a study in Côte d’Ivoire, HIV-seropositive individuals with pulmonary tuberculosis were 17 times more likely to die within six months than HIV-seronegative individuals with pulmonary tuberculosis. In Malawi, mortality over three years among children who had received recommended childhood immunizations and who survived the first year of life was 9.5 times higher among HIV-seropositive children than among HIV-seronegative children. The leading causes of death were wasting and respiratory conditions. Elsewhere in Africa, findings are similar.
Hiv Announcement And Olympics
After a physical before the 199192 NBA season, Johnson discovered that he had tested positive for HIV. In a press conference held on November 7, 1991, Johnson made a public announcement that he would retire immediately. He stated that his wife Cookie and their unborn child did not have HIV, and that he would dedicate his life to “battle this deadly disease”.
Johnson initially said that he did not know how he contracted the disease, but later acknowledged that it was through having numerous sexual partners during his playing career. He admitted to having “harems of women” and talked openly about his sexual activities because “he was convinced that heterosexuals needed to know that they, too, were at risk”. At the time, only a small percentage of HIV-positive American men had contracted it from heterosexual sex, and it was initially rumored that Johnson was gay or bisexual, although he denied both. Johnson later accused Isiah Thomas of spreading the rumors, a claim Thomas denied.
Johnson’s HIV announcement became a major news story in the United States, and in 2004 was named as ESPN’s seventh-most memorable moment of the previous 25 years. Many articles praised Johnson as a hero, and the then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush said, “For me, Magic is a hero, a hero for anyone who loves sports.”
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He’s Still Making An Impact Off The Court
According to CBS News, Johnson became “the face of HIV/AIDS” when he shocked the world with his diagnosis during a dramatic 1991 press conference. “I was just devastated, blown away,” Johnson recalled to CBS News. “We have to remember at that time, people were really dying of AIDS. I was just scared to death.” His stellar NBA career was over but a meeting shortly after with AIDS activist Elizabeth Glaser would give the five-time NBA champion a new purpose in life. “She made me promise before she died that I would become the face of the disease and really go out and help people and educate people about it,” Johnson told PBS Frontline.
Since 1991, Johnson has travelled the world, becoming an ambassador for treatment and prevention of the deadly virus, and speaking out against the early myths that were often associated with the disease. He also started the Magic Johnson Foundation, which has “worked to promote more testing and give minority communities better access to treatment,” according to Fox Sports.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation honored Johnson for his activism by giving him the inaugural World Aids Day Magic Award. “I haven’t played in 15 to 20 years and now when people come up to me it’s never about basketball,” Johnson told Fox Sports in 2010. “I guess I’ve turned the page on another chapter in my life.”
Magic Johnsons Nba Career
The NBA decided the 1980s, and Magic Johnsons career, with a coin flip. This is IF___ THEN___
SB Nation
Earvin Magic Johnson came from a close-knit, hard-working family in Michigan. Coming out of high school, Johnson showed immense talent and was highly-recruited by top tier schools such as UCLA, but he instead chose Michigan State because it had a high level of talented players already on the team. It was during college that he learned how to successfully play point guard under coach Jud Heathcote.
After a prolific college career, Johnson cemented himself as the top college player in the country in 1979 when he faced and defeated Bird and Indiana State. As a result, he was the No. 1 draft pick that year. Beginning in 1979, Johnson played a total of 13 seasons, all with the Lakers. He became the most dominant name in the NBA, averaging an incredible 19.5 points and seven rebounds per game.
Johnson won the NBA championship four times, established LA as a dynasty, played in 12 All-Star games, and participated in the 1992 Olympics as part of the fabled Dream Team. His pro career also spawned one of the greatest, ongoing rivalries in sports between the Lakers and the Celtics.
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There’s Nothing Magic About How He Lives With Hiv
Magic Johnson has lived with HIV since 1991, which naturally hasn’t come without a fair share of ups, downs, and unknowns. Speaking with Newsweek in 2011, Johnson, who at the time remained AIDS-free, offered some insight into his ongoing challenges. “I’ll hear people say every so often that having HIV must not be so bad just look at Magic and how well he’s doing. I’m blessed that the medicine I take really worked well with my body and makeup. It doesn’t work like that for everyone. A lot of people haven’t been as fortunate as I have.”
So how has the NBA Hall of Famer lived with a virus that many felt at the the time of his 1991 announcement was a “death sentence” ? Doctors put him on a new “cocktail of antiretroviral medications” in 1994 , which were, at the time, still being used in “clinical trials,” according to Spencer Lieb, senior epidemiologist and HIV/AIDS research coordinator for the Florida Consortium for HIV/AIDS Research.
While there is no cure for HIV as of this writing, Johnson has grown old enough to become a grandfather. “It was such a special moment, to be able to hold and play with my granddaughter and see my son actually become this great husband and father,” Johnson told Newsweek of the milestone. “Man, you don’t know I had to stop myself from tearing up, because who knew? Who really knew?”
Nba Career With The Los Angeles Lakers
Leaving college after two years, Johnson was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979. He did well in his first season with the team, averaging 18 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 7.3 assists per game.
Johnson won the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player award for his efforts in leading the Lakers to a victory over the Philadelphia 76ers, winning four of six games in the championship series. The team also included such strong players as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes and Norm Nixon.
During Johnson’s third season with the team, the Lakers made the NBA Finals again. For the second time in his pro career, the Lakers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers for the championship title.
Additionally, Johnson, who scored 13 points and added 13 rebounds with 13 assists in Game 6 of the 1982 Finals, earned his second series MVP award. The following season saw the third Finals match-up between the Lakers and the 76ers in four years.
This time, however, L.A. was defeated by Philadelphia, losing four consecutive games to the 76ers and winning none during the series.
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He’s Still Got The Magic Touch
Johnson walked away from his beloved Lakers, but he is literally invested in three other prominent Los Angeles sports franchises. Magic was the “public face” of the deep-pocketed Guggenheim Baseball Management group that bought the Dodgers for a then-record $2 billion in 2012. While the “boys in blue” have been revitalized, winning six division titles and appearing in two World Series , they haven’t won that elusive MLB championship since 1988. “I want for the players,” Magic told ESPN in 2017, adding, “Man, I want it for them. I want it for the fans, who have waited so long.”
Johnson also brought his winning ways to the Los Angeles Football Club , of which he shares ownership with a number of partners including Will Ferrell, Tony Robbins, and women’s soccer great Mia Hamm Garciaparra. LAFC had a historic first-season run in Major League Soccer by earning the “most points by an MLS team in its expansion season,” which led to a 2018 playoff-bid.
While Johnson sold his minority stake in the Lakers in 2010, he did return to professional basketball ownership by buying into the Los Angeles Sparks WNBA franchise in 2014. Citing Johnson’s “larger-than-life personality” and proven business record, WNBA President Laurel Richie told The Associated Press , “When Magic chooses to enter into a partnership with a WNBA team, that’s a great thing.”
Hiv Cannot Be The Cause Of Aids Because The Body Develops A Vigorous Antibody Response To The Virus
This reasoning ignores numerous examples of viruses other than HIV that can be pathogenic after evidence of immunity appears. Measles virus may persist for years in brain cells, eventually causing a chronic neurologic disease despite the presence of antibodies. Viruses such as Cytomegalovirus, Herpes simplex virus, and Varicella zoster may be activated after years of latency even in the presence of abundant antibodies. In other animals, viral relatives of HIV with long and variable latency periods, such as visna virus in sheep, cause central nervous system damage even after the production of antibodies.
HIV has a well-recognized capacity to mutate to evade the ongoing immune response of the host.
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Hiv Can Infect Only Homosexual Men And Drug Users
HIV can transmit from one person to another if an engaging partner is HIV positive. In the United States, the main route of infection is via homosexual anal sex, while for women transmission is primarily through heterosexual contact. It is true that anal sex carries a higher risk of infection than most sex acts, but most penetrative sex acts between any individuals carry some risk. Properly used condoms can reduce this risk.
Relationship With Jerry Buss
Magic Johnson had an extremely close relationship with Lakers owner Jerry Buss, whom he saw as a mentor and a father figure. Calling Buss his “second father” and “one of best friends”, Johnson spent five hours visiting Buss at the hospital just a few months before his death from cancer. Speaking to media just hours after Buss had died, Johnson was emotional, saying, “Without Dr. Jerry Buss, there is no Magic.” Buss acquired the team from Jack Kent Cooke in 1979, shortly before he drafted Johnson with the #1 pick in the 1979 NBA draft. In addition to playing 13 seasons for the Lakers and coaching the team briefly in 1994, Johnson also had an ownership stake in the team for nearly twenty years. Buss took a special interest in Johnson, introducing him to important Los Angeles business contacts and showing him how the Lakers organization was run, before eventually selling Johnson a stake in the team in 1994. Johnson credits Buss with giving him the business knowledge that enabled him to become part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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Origin Of Aids Through Humanmonkey Sexual Intercourse
While HIV is most likely a mutated form of simian immunodeficiency virus , a disease present only in chimpanzees and African monkeys, highly plausible explanations for the transfer of the disease between species exist not involving sexual intercourse. In particular, the African chimpanzees and monkeys which carry SIV are often hunted for food, and epidemiologists theorize that the disease may have appeared in humans after hunters came into blood-contact with monkeys infected with SIV that they had killed. The first known instance of HIV in a human was found in a person who died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1959, and a recent study dates the last common ancestor of HIV and SIV to between 1884 and 1914 by using a molecular clock approach.
Tennessee State SenatorStacey Campfield was the subject of controversy in 2012 after stating that AIDS was the result of a human having sexual intercourse with a monkey.
Woman Says Letter Warned Magic Johnson Told He Had Aids Virus Two Months Before Doctor Knew
Last year, Magic Johnson found out that he had the virus that causes AIDS in his body.
Last week, Earvin Johnson found out what it is really like to have the virus that causes AIDS in American society.
And so, hounded by a new wave of rumors that he must be bisexual, fearing the rejection of NBA players and aware that a $2 million lawsuit from a onetime lover that accuses him of giving her HIV was sure to burst public, Johnson last week rescinded his decision to return to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Thus did he make permanent his retirement from the activity that, only weeks before, he so joyously characterized as the reason God put him on this earth.
Of all the turmoil that drove Johnson back out of basketball, it is the grievous lawsuit in Michigan filed by a woman called only Jane Doe that threatens most to damage the reputation of the man who has probably become the athlete most famous — and most beloved — in all the world.
Newsweek has obtained a copy of the poignant letter that the woman claims she wrote to Johnson on Aug.29, 1991, which accuses Johnson of infecting her.
The letter is dated eight weeks before a life-insurance test revealed that he had contracted the virus and only two weeks before he went ahead and married his longtime sweetheart, Cookie.
Mostly she just asks him to accept responsibility. “I have no idea when the bottom will fall out, so I must prepare now. So you see, I can’t be a silent voice any longer, not even for you, Baby Boy.”
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