END OF THE MAGIC ERA : Wood Will Help Spread Word: Learn From What Has Happened

The man they used to call “Little Magic” when he played at Cal State Fullerton plans to give a talk at his alma mater today.

The audience will be the Fullerton basketball team.

The topic will be Big Magic.

“I feel I have a responsibility,” Leon Wood says. “I went there, I played there, I graduated from there, and now I coach there. Since I played professional sports, maybe they’ll listen to me when I say, ‘Hey, if it can happen to Magic, it can happen to anybody.’ ”

Wood won’t be alone. His message is one that will echo today in classrooms and gymnasiums, on practice fields and playgrounds, across this country and every other country familiar with the name Magic Johnson. That doesn’t exclude many.

New initials have been introduced into conversations usually restricted to NBA, NCAA, ERA and Beat L.A.

HIV.

AIDS.

Is it a stretch to say that the last 24 hours have generated more discussion on the topic than the past 10 years combined?

The disease of the fringes went mainstream on Thursday. Before, it was so easy to ignore because it didn’t happen next door. It was the plague of the art community, the gay community, the Hollywood community--just not your community or my community.

But Magic Johnson belongs to the masses. He is Everybody’s Basketball Player, everybody’s smiling face with the baby skyhook and five NBA championship rings, everybody’s human sunshine.

When Magic Johnson tests positive for HIV, HIV becomes everybody’s problem.

“I think right now we’ve had a wake-up call,” Wood says. “If anything positive comes out of this, it’s that it probably took someone of Magic’s status to get everybody thinking. People all over the world look up to Magic. If anything or anyone can get the message across, it’ll be him.”

Little Magic never panned out as the second coming of Magic I, but Wood is as close as Fullerton gets to basketball legend. Wood played three years at Fullerton, 1981 through ‘84, made All-American, made the U.S. Olympic team, set school records for scoring and assists and was drafted in the first round by the Philadelphia 76ers. Six years and six NBA stops later, Wood’s basketball career has hit at least a pit stop; he’s now an assistant on Fullerton Coach John Sneed’s staff while recovering from foot surgery.

But he’ll always have Magic. “I played with him,” Wood says, a tinge of amazement in those words. “I was out on the same floor with him. I ran with him, I played against him. Whatever else happens to me from here on out, I can always say that.”

The Magic comparisons began in high school for Wood. With Wood’s full-court smile, wrap-around passes and go-to dependability, they came naturally.

“One of the guys on my high school team called me Little Magic, and it was definitely a compliment,” Wood says. “I’d always played (shooting) guard but in college, my coach wanted to convert me to point guard, so I patterned my whole game after Magic throughout my college career. Even when I was playing ball overseas, he was still the guy I’d visualize, the guy I’d look up to.”

Magics Big and Little met for the first time during the summer of ‘84, when Bobby Knight’s Olympic team was barnstorming the NBA, looking for a little competition. “I was in the locker room, and Magic comes up to me,” Wood recalls. “And he says, ‘So you’re the guy everyone’s comparing to me.’ He had the same big smile, as always.

“I said, “Yeah, I’m the one’ and we talked a little. Now occasionally, I’ll see him at summer camps. If I run into him, we’ll always talk.”

Today, the time has come to talk about Magic. Either before or after practice, Wood will gather this season’s Titans around him and speak from his experience about what he can gather about Magic’s.

“I’m surprised it happened to Magic, but I can’t say I’m surprised it happened to a professional basketball player,” Wood says. “Not at all. I think it was just a matter of time. The NBA lifestyle--all that traveling, all the different places you play, the great temptation. I think it was going to happen sooner or later. It was like, ‘OK, who is it going to be?’ ”

Wood says, “I’m not going to be their mother and father, but I’m going to tell them, ‘Hey, when you go out, and I assume most of you are still single, be careful. Take precautions. If you’re not prepared, hey, you don’t have to have it then. There’s always another day.

“ ‘And don’t be afraid to ask questions, like “Where can I get a (condom)?” You may think it’s funny, you may laugh about it, but it’s no joke.’ ”

The players have heard it all before. But now, Wood says, they can relate as never before.

“If an actor or an actress had tested positive, it would be totally different,” Wood says. “To the eye of the athlete, that’s a completely different world. The entertainment world. We don’t know that lifestyle.

“But we do know what an athlete’s life is like. We know the things another athlete goes through . . . I think a lot of athletes are rethinking their lifestyles tonight. It’s not like this is something he isn’t going to hear about. Because even if you don’t have a radio, if you don’t have a TV, you will know about this.

“From now on, when the time comes, it won’t be in the back of their minds. It’ll definitely be in the front of their minds.”

Today, those minds are open. Raise the level of your game? Magic is more concerned with raising consciousness.

By coming forward Thursday, by refusing to hide behind the wall of secrecy so many others have chosen, Magic Johnson had his bravest hour, and maybe more. All things considered, it might have been his finest.