Magic Was Already a Star Before First Laker Assist

In coming home Monday to California, too late to catch the floor show at Magic’s castle in Inglewood, the movie on my westbound flight was something called, “The Pistol: Birth of a Legend,” a story about a dazzling young basketball prodigy, Pete Maravich, whose ballhandling prowess was second to none and whose father taught the boy everything he knew.

That night, when I watched the one-of-a-kind Earvin Johnson Jr. on television, sobbing like a big beautiful baby, reminding the whole world how much he owed and adored his dad, I went digging into my bedroom closet for a few of my favorite keepsakes.

One was my green “MSU Magic” souvenir T-shirt, bought the first time I went to Jenison Field House in East Lansing, Mich., to see this precocious sleight-of-hand artist in person. He was handsome and he was 6 feet 8 and he was a guard and he had a hairdo that made him look 6-11.

Another memento was a Nov. 28, 1978, copy of Sports Illustrated, with Magic on the cover shooting a basketball in top hat and tails, and a story inside that quoted 19-year-old Earvin Johnson discussing how he preferred passing to shooting, and how: “My father would point out things to me, like Oscar taking a smaller guard underneath, or the pick and roll.” Oh, that’s Oscar as in Robertson.

Finally, I found the May 10, 1979, edition of the Chicago Sun-Times that I have hung onto for a dozen years, a tabloid that was headlined, front page and back: “Magic Johnson Will Turn Pro.” No official announcement had yet been made that Earvin was leaving Michigan State after his sophomore year, but this was a big story in Los Angeles and Chicago, where the Lakers and the Bulls had just flipped a coin for the right to choose first in the NBA draft.

And I wrote the story.

Please forgive all this “I, I, I” stuff, but it demonstrates some of the pride and delight I take in having traced the evolution of Earvin Johnson from schoolboy hopeful to grown-up hero, the ultimate transition game, capped by Monday night’s certification of Earvin as the greatest assist-maker of all time.

He played for Everett High in Lansing, and this, with all due respect to the late, great Pistol Pete Maravich, was truly the “birth of a legend.” Back then, point guards were called playmakers, and they tended never to be taller than 6-2. In the Maravich movie, the Pistol is stiffed by his high school teammates because he is too short, until eventually he shows them what he can do.

Magic was everything Pistol was not. Maravich did the Globetrotter dribble, the behind-the-back, the between-the-legs, the around-the-neck. Magic didn’t pull rabbits from his hat. He was a fundamentalist, purveyor of textbook chest passes and bounce passes, made uncommon by his telescopic eyesight, his obvious height advantage, his seeming extrasensory perception and hands as large as oven mitts that enabled him to hold and throw the basketball like a baseball.

One high school night, Johnson got 36 points and 18 rebounds. Not so terribly unusual, except he also got 16 assists. For the big game against cross-town Lansing Eastern, the site had to be the university field house because 9,886 people purchased tickets. And every Michigan State season ticket sold out as soon as Magic announced that he was enrolling.

It took him one year there to make everyone ga-ga. Joe Axelson, general manager of the then-Kansas City Kings, told Sports Illustrated: “Johnson could start for anybody in the (NBA) tomorrow. He’s the most exciting college player I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe God created a 6-foot-8 man who can handle the ball like that.”

After Johnson’s sophomore season and accompanying national championship, my editor suggested that I nose around to see whether Magic would indeed turn pro, something he would not confirm. So, when a pep rally was held in his honor at the Everett High gym, the night before his Michigan State news conference, I made some inquiries without identifying myself, obviously going through my sneaky Woodward and Bernstein period.

Magic’s nice mom was in the stands, so I said: “Earvin’s really going to miss school, isn’t he?”

And she said: “Yes, but his mind’s made up.”

Magic’s nice high school coach, George Fox, was in the foyer, so I said: “I’m glad Earvin’s made up his mind.”

And he said: “Yeah, he just told me tonight. It’s time for him to move on.”

Earvin just smiled his best Earvin smile and said I would have to wait to find out, same as everybody else. My story came out, and then Johnson made his announcement, saying he had stayed awake until 4 a.m. before deciding. A school official shook a finger in my face and said: “Boy, are you lucky.”

No, pro basketball was lucky. The Lakers were lucky. The Bulls called tails, the coin came up heads and Earvin Johnson Jr. came out of college. Came out passing. Became a man. Remained a kid. And there is only one thing that amazes me more about Magic Johnson than what he has already done.

What he will do next.