MAGIC : HIS ELAN IGNITED THE LAKERS UNTIL THE AIDS VIRUS STILLED A BRILLIANT CAREER. NOW HE’S BACK, AND HE TELLS HIS STORY.

By the time that Earvin (Magic) Johnson called a Sept. 29 Forum press conference this year, his announcement was no surprise. The Laker superstar had been hinting--heavily. Last February, in a one-day comeback from retirement, Magic had dominated the National Basketball Assn. All-Star game. He dazzled a world audience as point guard of the American Dream Team at the Summer Olympics. He felt ready. * “God put me here to play basketball and do my thing on the court,” Johnson told reporters, announcing his return. “That’s where I’m going to do my thing. I’m not going to sit here and say you’re not going to run a risk, but life itself is a risk. To have that fun and be out there, I’ll take it, and I know everything is going to be all right.” * Just a year ago, Johnson had delivered more than surprise. It was shock. He said he had tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. He is now the first athlete known to be carrying the AIDS virus to play professional sports. The 33-year-old Johnson reportedly will be paid $14.6 million for a one-year, 1994-95 extension of his contract, his whether he plays or not. He began training with the team in Hawaii last month as the Lakers headed toward last week’s opening game. * In a newly published autobiography, “My Life,” excerpted here, Johnson talks about the game he loves, the women in ballplayers’ lives, his family and AIDS.

*

I grew up in the kind of black family that people today worry is disappearing. Even though there were nine of us, we had what we needed--two great parents, food on the table and time for the whole family to be together. To provide for us, my parents worked terribly hard. My father had two full-time jobs, and Mom worked just as hard to keep the household going. Seven kids kept her busy, but she also had jobs outside the home.

This was in Lansing, Mich., an hour and a half from Detroit. Our family lived in a stable neighborhood of working people. It wasn’t the suburbs, but it wasn’t the ghetto, either. Lansing is a big factory town. General Motors was really cooking during the 1950s, so there were plenty of jobs. Most of the fathers I knew, including mine, worked for GM or one of its subsidiaries.

My mother says I was a jolly baby who smiled a lot, and that I let just about anybody pick me up and play with me. That sounds about right. I was chubby before I grew tall, and when I was young, people called me June Bug. Grown-ups in the neighborhood would be going off to work, and when they passed me with my basketball, I’d hear them say: “There goes that crazy June Bug, hoopin’ all day.”My parents called me Junior, but to my friends I was E.J., or sometimes just E. People from Lansing still call me that. My original nickname disappeared long ago, which is fine with me. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through my professional career with that name: “And now, ladies and gentlemen, playing guard for the world-champion Los Angeles Lakers, June Bug Johnson!”

We were a close-knit family, and we had fun together. Just about every Saturday night we had a pizza party. Mom would cook up a batch of pies with onions, peppers, mushrooms and hamburger. After supper, we’d all move into the living room with big bowls of popcorn to watch TV. When I think back on how television influenced me, what comes to mind isn’t a program but a commercial for Camay soap. It showed a tall, elegant lady who seemed to live in a castle. She was about to step into a huge, sunken bathtub. For some reason, that tub just called out to me. That’s it, I decided. When I grow up, I’m going to live in a big mansion with a gigantic bathtub just like that one.

My father’s favorite player was Wilt Chamberlain, but we used to watch all the greats: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson from Milwaukee, Bill Russell and John Havlicek from the Celtics, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West from the Lakers. During the games, my father would point out the subtleties of the pick-and-roll play and explain the various defensive strategies.

I wanted to be good, so I practiced and played constantly. As hard as my father worked on his job, I worked on the basketball court. But I always found a way to make it fun. When I was alone, I’d play imaginary full-court games between Philadelphia and Detroit. These always boiled down to a one-on-one confrontation between my two favorites, Wilt Chamberlain and Dave Bing. I’d be Chamberlain going one way and Bing going the other.

Occasionally, I got to see Bing in person at Cobo Arena in Detroit. Going to a basketball game in those days was not as difficult as it is today. Tickets were much cheaper, and you could usually get one, too. These games were fun-- especially in Detroit. The Pistons were not a good team, but that didn’t matter because the games were great social events anyway. The crowd, which was mostly black, was really dressed up: the women in their nice coats and fur collars, the men in big hats and eye-catching, hip suits like you would never see back in Lansing.

I miss places like Cobo. When I got to the pros, it bothered me that although black players were dominating the game, there seemed to be fewer and fewer black fans. Most of the teams had moved out to the suburbs, and ticket prices were so high that many of the older fans could no longer afford to come. But Cobo--that place was special. It was a small, intimate arena where the fans could actually talk to the players: “Whip it on him! Talk to him, Mr. Bing! He can’t carry your tennis shoes!” They let you know if you could play, and if you couldn’t, they let you know that, too.

I don’t know exactly when I understood that basketball was more than just a game for me, or when the outside world started to matter. But I was probably around 10. My fifth-grade teacher, Greta Dart, and her husband, Jim, played a role in my growing up that was second only to my parents. Outside of my family, they were the most important adults in my life. Getting to know the Darts allowed me to start feeling comfortable with white people. She was small, only about five feet tall, and probably didn’t weigh more than 100 pounds. She was also a blue-eyed blonde in a school where 95% of the kids were black.

Jim Dart drove a truck for Vernor’s, a soft-drink company that made only one product--ginger ale. Jim took good care of me. He’s a basketball nut, and he used to take me with him to the games at Sexton High, which was right in our neighborhood. Sexton High: It was the pride of the west side and was known throughout the state of Michigan as a basketball powerhouse. This was Showtime, Lansing-style.

But I hadn’t counted on busing. Some people think that only whites were against forced busing, and that most blacks supported it. Not in Lansing! We hated busing, and nobody hated it more than I did. Our family lived just outside the cutoff line. Suddenly, we weren’t allowed to go to Sexton with all our friends. All of us were bused to Everett, a white school on the south side of town.

Busing was still relatively new; we were only the second group to attend the school. There were about 100 of us at Everett, and at basketball games, the black kids all sat together under the basket, like a big black dot on a white page.

The year I came to Everett we were picked to finish last. But we got off to a great start and won our first six games. Then came a game against Jackson Parkside that I’ll never forget. They were picked to finish first, and they were very good. But we were better, and we just destroyed them. I had one of the best games of my entire life and finished with 36 points, 18 rebounds and 16 assists. A triple-double, although back then nobody used that phrase.

After the game, Fred Stabley Jr., a sportswriter for the Lansing State Journal, came into our locker room as usual. “Great game, Earvin,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Listen, Earvin, I think you should have a nickname. I was thinking of calling you Dr. J., but that’s taken. And so is Big E--Elvin Hayes. How about if I call you Magic?” I was 15 years old. My teammates were standing around listening to all of this.

I was embarrassed by the question and didn’t take it seriously. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever you like.”

I didn’t expect to hear that name again, and for a few weeks I didn’t. Fred told me later that when he got back to the office, his colleagues at the paper talked him out of it. “Don’t call him Magic,” his editor said. “The kid is off to a great start, but it’ll never last.” A little later, when I had another great game against the same team, Fred started writing about me as Earvin (Magic) Johnson. Within about two months, that name was known all across Michigan.

I’M NOT WRITING ABOUT THE WOMEN IN MY LIFE IN ORDER TO BRAG; I’M no Wilt Chamberlain. But I have to acknowledge that the virus in my body, which came from a casual encounter, has created tremendous curiosity about the role sex has played in my life. So I owe it to the reader to be candid.

In the age of AIDS, unprotected sex is reckless. I know that now, of course. But the truth is, I knew it then, too. I just didn’t pay attention. I couldn’t believe that anything like this could happen to me.

Let me deal with the gay issue first, because people keep asking about it. I can understand the doubts of those who still wonder if I’m gay. For one thing, only a small percentage of Americans who have HIV or AIDS are men who got the virus from having unprotected sex with women. For another, in spite of everything I’ve said, a lot of people--and especially athletes--still want to believe that I got the virus through a homosexual encounter. Because if I did, that would let them off the hook. If they, too, have been promiscuous with the opposite sex, especially if it happened with any of the same women that I was with, it would be a big relief to know that Magic contracted HIV because he was gay or bisexual.

But I’m not. And it didn’t happen that way. And it didn’t happen through sharing a needle, because I’ve never done drugs.

These days, when I go out and speak, I tell people that no matter how somebody got this virus, we’ve got to open our arms up to everybody who has it--and not just to me because I’m heterosexual.

Where do we draw the line on private relationships? The answer is, that line keeps changing. Is it really wrong for an unmarried man to have consenting sex with an unmarried woman? With many women? That’s what some of the criticism has been about. Well, then, how much is too much? As long as nobody gets hurt, what’s wrong with sex between unmarried adults?

People make all kinds of choices in their lives. Some drink. Some smoke. Some eat too much. That wasn’t me. My pleasure was being with women.

All of this happened during my long on-again, off-again relationship with Cookie (Earleatha Kelly of Detroit, whom Johnson met at Michigan State University). Some people can’t understand how I could love one woman and be with others. But there was a part of me that was always with Cookie. Maybe that was Earvin, and the other part of me was Magic.

Eventually, I wised up and married Cookie. Until then, women were a big part of my life. I was discreet, and I kept it quiet. My teammates knew, but what I did, most of them were doing, too. Nobody ever said the Lakes were Boy Scouts.

There’s an old joke in the NBA, and it’s probably told in other sports as well. Question: What’s the hardest thing about going on the road? Answer: Trying not to smile when you kiss your wife goodby.

When you play in the NBA, there are women waiting to meet you in every city along the way. That’s especially true with a high-prestige team like the Lakers. During the 1980s, the Lakers were seen as the sexiest and most glamorous team of them all. Los Angeles was glamorous. Winning was glamorous. Our fast break was sexy. And being the best team in the league made us seem very sexy.

Just about every time the bus brought us back to our hotel after a game, there would be 40 or 50 women waiting in the lobby to meet us. Most of them were beautiful, and a few were just unbelievable.

Some were secretaries. Some were lawyers. Quite a few were actresses or models. Others were teachers, editors, accountants or entrepreneurs. There were bimbos, too, but not that many. Some were black, some white, Hispanic or Asian. Some of these women were very open about what they were doing, and some were more discreet.

Sometimes I wouldn’t even pick up the phone. Or I might ask the operator to hold all calls. But women kept calling, and some of them got through.

“Hello, Magic. This is Cheryl. Did you get my message?”

“But I don’t know you.”

“That’s all right. I’ll be at the game tonight, Section 42. I’ll be wearing a black sweater.”

This sort of thing happened constantly--especially in the larger cities. New York, Atlanta, Chicago and Houston were hot towns. In the smaller cities and most of the South, women were generally less aggressive.

Every large city had certain restaurants and nightspots where the players would hang out. In Los Angeles it was Carlos & Charlie’s, a restaurant-disco on Sunset Boulevard. In New York, the China Club was popular.

I could never understand how a player could sleep with a woman on the day of a game. Some guys did, but I couldn’t imagine doing that. I might spend the afternoon with a woman, but I would never have sex until the game was over. With most guys, basketball came first.

Every person is different, of course. Some of the married players didn’t fool around at all. Or if they did, they were so discreet that nobody knew about it. There were also a few players in the league who abstained for religious reasons.

I myself never spent the night with a woman. It just didn’t feel right. Often, after we slept together, she’d want to stay. That’s why I explained in advance that I preferred to sleep alone, and that no matter what happened between us, I would be asking her to leave when it was over. That way it was her choice.

I also liked women who could carry on a conversation. That’s because being with a woman on the road is not just about sex. It’s also about conversation and relaxing and not being lonely. But most women talked easily. And if they didn’t talk much, they’d ask questions. How does it feel to be famous? What’s Kareem really like? Tell me about Arsenio.

Sometimes the questions were very explicit. Not about sex, but money. How much was I being paid? How much was so-and-so making? I sometimes felt that it wasn’t so much me but my paycheck that got them excited. They just couldn’t resist the idea of going to bed with a guy who was making millions of dollars.

What it boiled down to was that many of these women were doing to men exactly what men have been doing to women all these years. They were treating us like sex objects. What they wanted was conquest. And for some of them, most of the thrill was in the chase.

For others, the thrill was in fulfilling a particular fantasy. On the roof of a hotel. On a beach. In an airplane. One woman wanted to try it in a hotel elevator. I went along for the ride. Another woman I was friendly with asked me to come to her office. She had always dreamed of having sex right there on her desk while her colleagues were sitting in a board meeting in the very next room. We got away with it, but that one was definitely the scariest.

I had my own fantasies, too. Like many men, I had always wondered what it would be like to be with more than one woman at a time. There were times when I was able to arrange such an evening with two women. Or more.

I know how I got HIV. That’s clear. But I don’t know who gave it to me. I called a number of women before I made the announcement, so they could get tested. I also called women after the announcement. They knew about it by then, of course, but I still felt some responsibility toward them. Of the women I have talked to, nobody has tested positive--at least not yet. Thank God for that.

THE PHONE CALL CAME AT 2:15 P.M. ON Friday, Oct. 25, 1991. The Lakers had just checked into our hotel in Salt Lake City. That night, we were to play a preseason exhibition game against the Utah Jazz. Dr. Michael Mellman, the team physician, was on the line. I know him as Mickey.

“Earvin,” he said, “I’d like you to fly back here and see me right away.”

“Why?”

“I’ve just learned that you failed your insurance physical.”

It wasn’t until I was on the plane that I had a chance to really think about this. For the past five days, ever since we’d returned from a week of exhibition games over in Paris, I had been feeling run-down. Then, just after we returned, there had been back-to-back games at the Forum. But Mickey had mentioned the insurance physical. That had been about a month ago. So what could it be? High blood pressure? My father had that. Cancer? I hoped not. AIDS? Not likely. Didn’t you have to be gay to get that? Or a drug user?

Mickey had always talked straight to me. We weren’t just doctor and patient--we were friends, too. But today he looked drawn and pale. I could see by his eyes that this was difficult for him. Whatever it was, the news was going to be bad. Maybe very bad.

He looked straight at me. “Earvin, I have the test results from your life insurance physical. It says here that you tested positive to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.” He went on to explain exactly what that meant.

“What about Cookie?” I asked. “She’s pregnant.” Mickey didn’t know that. We had found out for sure only that week, and we weren’t telling people yet.

“I don’t know bout Cookie,” he replied. “We’ll have to test her anyway, as soon as possible.”

“And the baby?”

“If Cookie is negative, the baby will be fine.”

Now came the hard part. How to break it to Cookie. How could I even begin to tell her about this? How could I soften it? What could I say? How could I do this to her? I walked into the house. Cookie was in the den. “How are you doing?” she said.

“Fine.”

“What’s wrong?”

She knew me too well.

At first I couldn’t speak. I wanted to say it right, but being there with her, I realized there was no right way. I just had to be direct. “I’ve got a problem,” I said. “I tested positive for HIV. I have AIDS.”

Cookie started crying. She thought I was going to die. We talked about that, and a lot of other things. One thing she never asked me was how I got the virus. That wasn’t important. There was nothing we could do about the past. She was only thinking of the future--mine, hers and the baby’s.

I started to tell her that I’d understand completely if she wanted to leave. Wham! Before I even got the words out, she slapped me hard in the face. My mother and my grandmother had always told me that black women were strong, and that night I found out what they meant. She was really mad. She couldn’t believe I could even think about something like that. But I felt terrible. I’d jerked her around for 14 years. And now this.

The press conference was held in the back of the Forum Club. As our little group walked in, practically the only thing you could hear was the clicking of automatic cameras, like little machine guns going off. I walked straight to the podium and started talking.

“Because of the HIV that I have attained, 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. My wife is fine. She’s negative, so no problem with her.

“I plan on going on living for a long time, bugging you guys like I always have. So you’ll see me around.”

A couple of days later I was invited to be an activist when President Bush asked me to join the National Commission on AIDS. When the idea came up, I saw it as an opportunity to help spread the message of safer sex--especially to young people. At the same time, I didn’t want to be used as window dressing by an Administration that had not, in my opinion, done nearly enough to deal with this problem.

On Jan. 14, I attended my first meeting with the commission. Some of the things that I heard that day were very upsetting. None of these facts and figures made the nightly news. Instead, the networks showed a very dramatic moment when a young AIDS activist addressed the commission and told me that I was probably going to die.

A chill went down my spine when I actually walked into the West Wing, the door to the Oval Office opened, and Sam Skinner, the President’s new chief of staff, said: “He’s ready for you now.” But George Bush is skillful in making you feel at ease. He really commands the room with his friendliness. The President brought in two or three of his own advisers, and we all sat down and talked.

During this brief meeting, I told the President that I thought the American public was waiting for him to show greater leadership on the issue, that he needed to come out and say he understood, that he cared and that he’d do whatever he possibly could to help solve this growing crisis. He had mentioned AIDS only a couple of times during his presidency, and I urged him to say a lot more. He seemed to be listening.

After about 15 minutes, the President looked at his watch. Then he took out an index card with his daily schedule typed on it. He looked up at me. “You guys got a few minutes?” he asked. “‘Cause if you do, I’d love to show you the basketball court that we have out back.”

I’m not sure whether the President got the message.

Months later, I realized that the situation had not changed and would not. On June 25, the commission, which is a bipartisan panel, released a statement saying that the Bush Administration had failed the entire nation by showing poor leadership in combatting the AIDS epidemic. I knew then that I would eventually have to resign. On Sept. 25, I sent President Bush a letter saying, “I cannot in good conscience continue to serve on a commission whose important work is so utterly ignored by your Administration.” (When Bush said during a presidential debate that he was “a little disappointed” in Johnson’s resignation, the Laker star attributed the criticism to “politics.”)

BASKETBALL HAS ALWAYS been a joy to me. The most fun I ever had playing the game was in college. When I was finishing high school, I could have chosen to play for any college in the country, and when I arrived at Michigan State, the applause was ringing in my ears. But when I decided to turn pro after my sophomore year (when Michigan State won the NCAA title), the situation was very different. The level of play is a lot higher in the pros. The NBA is another reality. It’s a big business, with big money, big stakes and big egos.

The Lakers were already pretty good. And they had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the foremost player in all of basketball. If he and I could develop some chemistry on the court and I could feed the ball to Kareem, the results could be very interesting.

All things being equal, I would have preferred to play in the Midwest, where I would have been closer to my family. But all things were not equal. Assuming that they picked me first, the Lakers were my only option. If they came up with the money I was looking for, that’s where I would go.

Nobody wants to admit it today, but the Lakers’ top brass had reservations. They worried that I was a flash in the pan, a college showpiece with no outside shot who wouldn’t survive in the pros. I learned later that the team’s decision to draft me was actually made by Dr. Jerry Buss, a real estate developer who was about to buy the team from Jack Kent Cooke. Buss had watched Michigan State on TV during the NCAA tournament and decided that I was the man who could help the Lakers improve their break. He liked my style and enthusiasm and believed that bringing me to Los Angeles would help put fans in the seats.

Now it was time to talk turkey with Cooke, and I flew to Los Angeles with my father and two business advisers. When our little group arrived at the Forum, Cooke invited us to join him for lunch in the Trophy Room. We sat at a long, wooden table, and the walls around us were decorated with photographs of Cooke posing with various celebrities. He was a handsome man in his mid-60s, and he wore an expensive, elegant suit.

“What would you like to eat?” he asked me.

I was 19 and I was not used to private dining rooms. When I hesitated, he said: “Never mind. I’ll order for both of us.”

He ordered sand dabs, which I had never even heard of. “These are great,” he said. “You’re going to love them.”

When lunch arrived, he turned to me and said, “Well, Earvin, how do you like your sand dabs?” I didn’t like fish, and I definitely didn’t like these fish. “They’re all right,” I said, trying to be polite.

A hush fell over the room. I had no idea that Cooke took lunch so seriously. He looked like somebody close to him had just died.

“All right?” he said. “These are delicious.”

Maybe so, but not to me. “Would you mind if I ordered something else?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“A hamburger? Or a pizza? Or maybe a roast beef sandwich?” Although Cooke was hurt, he asked the kitchen to rustle up a couple of burgers.

After lunch we got down to business. I told him I was thinking of $600,000 a year for five years. I also wanted an education allowance. “Let’s get one thing straight right off,” Cooke said. “I’m not paying for your education. I put myself through school, and if I can do it, you certainly can. Right now we can offer you $400,000. It’s not what you’re asking for, but it’s a hell of a lot of money.” The next morning, finally, he came up with a package that was equivalent to $500,000 a year. Now, at last, we had a deal. We celebrated over lunch. This time he let me order. It was pizza for everybody. Cooke said he had never tasted pizza before. When it arrived, he said, “Actually, this stuff is pretty good.”

“Who knows?” I replied. “Maybe it’ll catch on.”

When I left Los Angeles that day, I was the highest-paid rookie in the history of the NBA. That lasted for about a month, till the Celtics signed Larry Bird for $600,000.

DURING MY CAREER IN THE NBA, I’ve gone up against hundreds, maybe even thousands of players. Many were good. A few were very good. A tiny handful even deserved to be called great. But there was nobody greater than Larry Bird.

Michael Jordan can do incredible things, including moves I’ve never seen before. There’s nobody like him. But Larry is the only player I ever feared. I felt confident that the Lakers could beat any team in the league, and we usually did. But when we played the Celtics, no lead was safe as long as Bird was on the floor. That’s why our championship victories over Boston in 1985 and 1987 were the most gratifying of all. When you beat Larry Bird, you knew you had beaten the best.

Larry and I came into the NBA at the same time, just after that final game of our college careers in 1979. And since then we’ve been linked in people’s minds--”inextricably linked” is how the writers usually put it--although we played on opposite ends of the country. But it’s true--there has always been a special bond between us, even during the years when neither of us wanted to admit it.

It’s true that on the surface we seem incredibly different. Even beyond race. People associate me with Hollywood. And they often think of Larry as a farmer. The truth is that we’re both a couple of small-town boys. We’re still close to our families, our teachers, our former coaches and the people we grew up with. It’s no accident that Larry went back to French Lick, Ind., every summer, while I returned to Lansing. We knew where we came from and where we ultimately belonged.

The amazing thing about Larry is that he has achieved his success without some of the natural talents that other players take for granted. My own physical gifts are limited, but compared to this guy, I’m one of the Flying Wallenda Brothers. White men can’t jump? He’s living proof. Some white men don’t move too quickly, either. A lot of players run faster, and yet Larry always seems to beat them up the court. Maybe that’s because he knows exactly where he’s going and what he intends to do once he gets there.

Black fans have always been aware of Bird, even in the beginning, when they pretended not to notice him. At first, many blacks didn’t think he was all that good. It was hard for them to accept that this guy could really play, that he could do almost everything the best black players could do. Some of these fans resented him. They thought he was nothing more than a media creation, a white star produced to satisfy the white public. Actually, Bird did everything possible to stay away from the media. I was the one they kept interviewing, because I enjoyed the attention. He never did.

Sooner or later, the black fans came around. They might not like Larry Bird, but they had to respect him. It wasn’t only his talent that they noticed; it was also his attitude. The fact that he talked trash was even more surprising. That’s playground stuff, and blacks weren’t used to hearing it from whites. But he backed it up night after night after night, and that’s what counts.

If Larry could do a 360 dunk and laugh at you, he would. But he can’t. So instead he hits a three-pointer and laughs at you.

I’VE BEEN VISITING INNER-city high schools across the county. My main message is that I want these kids to learn from my mistake. There’s a second message I convey that has nothing to do with AIDS. It’s about making a success of yourself.

Basketball was my ticket to success. But if I hadn’t been good enough, I would have been successful in something else. I would have gone to college, worked hard and made something of myself. You can do that, too.

Basketball is not the best way to get ahead. It’s probably the most difficult path you could take. There are 27 teams in the NBA, and each team has 12 players. That makes 324 players who are in the league at any one time. In a country as big as ours, that’s not a big number. You have to understand that your chances of playing basketball for a living are minuscule.

The black community already has enough basketball players. And enough baseball and football players. We could really use more teachers. We need more lawyers, doctors, accountants, nurses, pilots, scientists, carpenters, police officers, politicians. And every one of these professions is easier to get into than the NBA.

You see what I’m saying? Later on, when you become that doctor, or that lawyer, I want you to knock on my door and say: “I became that lawyer you talked about. Will you be one of my clients?”

The government will not save you. The black leadership will not save you. You’re the only one who can make a difference. Go for it!