A REAL SURVIVOR

A decade after revealing he tested positive for the HIV virus that can lead to AIDS, Earvin “Magic” Johnson is very much alive, very much in control of a far-flung, multimillion-dollar business empire, and very much a highly visible source of hope and inspiration to those battling a disease once considered tantamount to a death sentence.

“If I would have thought I was going to die, I probably would have,” says Johnson, who stunned the sports world when he held a news conference 10 years ago today to announce he was retiring from the Lakers because of the virus. “But I just took it as a challenge.”

A challenge he shared with the world. Today, AIDS awareness is a given. A decade ago, knowledge of the disease was in the Dark Ages.

“His example had an impact on the whole field,” says Dr. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York and a nationally renowned HIV/AIDS specialist. “Ten years ago, people saw this disease as an automatic death sentence. Ten years later, to see him still so active, still looking so healthy, is important.”

Once of the world’s most beloved athletes, a man who won five NBA titles for the Lakers in 12 seasons after winning an NCAA championship at Michigan State, Johnson’s image was badly tarnished by his admission of the promiscuity that led to the illness. But he also may have made his greatest impact by spreading the word that casual, heterosexual sex could result in AIDS. That revelation was particularly important to the black community, which has been especially hard-hit.

“It was one of those before-and-after moments, and Magic’s announcement completely changed the landscape,” says Phill Wilson, founding director of the African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute in Los Angeles. “Before that, you couldn’t really have a conversation that would be believed in the black community that AIDS was a black issue.”

Now 42, Johnson has managed to shift careers as smoothly as he once shifted gears on the court. With his disease in remission, this dead man is not only walking, but fastbreaking his way through life.

From his suite of offices sprawling across the entire top floor of a Wilshire Boulevard high-rise, Johnson oversees nationwide holdings that include Starbucks coffeehouses, TGI Friday’s and the Fatburger fast-food restaurants, movie theaters, a bank, a record label and a movie production company, along with his 5% share of the Lakers.

He fills endless requests to serve as a motivational speaker at $60,000 per appearance, travels the world with his own basketball team to play exhibition games, runs the nonprofit Magic Johnson Foundation to help inner cities, and has raised $20 million in the last decade for a number of charities, including AIDS research and prevention.

He also finds the time to work out up to six hours a day and spend time with his wife and his three children. And, oh yeah, down the road, he says he won’t rule out a run for mayor of Los Angeles.

“I think the mayor [James Hahn] is doing a good job, but I’m watching him,” says Johnson, flashing that trademark smile.

Today, there are stubbles of gray on his shaved head. He weighs in at 250 pounds--well over the lean 210 pounds of his playing days. But that smile, the optimism, the determination remain unchanged.

Ten years ago, it seemed Johnson’s life had changed forever.

A Time to Weep

Johnson learned of his condition after a routine blood test.

“Is this for real?” he remembered thinking. “No, it ain’t happening. This is like a fog, a dream and I’m going to wake up.”

He says telling his wife was the hardest thing he has ever done.

“Harder than playing against Larry [Bird]. Harder than playing against Michael [Jordan],” he says.

The former Earleatha Kelly, Cookie had been with Johnson since college. She had endured the Showtime years, when the line of women willing to have sex with Johnson rivaled the line of autograph seekers. When Johnson told her, he said he would understand if she left him.

He says she slapped him for making that suggestion. “We just cried and held each other. The greatest thing that ever happened to me was that she stayed. I think that’s why I’m alive today.”

In the ensuing days, there was good news and bad. Two tests confirmed Johnson had the virus. Cookie and their unborn child tested negative. The impact of it all began settling in.

Shortly after learning of the test results, Johnson and his agent, Lon Rosen, went to an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica.

“I’ve been blessed in my life,” Johnson said as they ate. “Even if I don’t have much time left, I’ve had an amazing life.”

During the meal, a woman approached Johnson and asked for his support at an upcoming event. It was the kind of thing that happened to him all the time. As she handed him a business card, she told him it was an AIDS fund-raiser.

Johnson froze.

“Now, I’m one of them,” he told Rosen.

Over the next few days, Johnson decided to quit basketball. Although experts said Johnson did not pose a threat to other players, there were concerns that the rigors of the game--air travel, exhaustion, weight fluctuation--put him at risk. There were also questions about how the virus would react, said Johnson’s physician, Mickey Mellman.

“We were not sure what he had wouldn’t evolve into full AIDS status,” Mellman says. “He was not sure he wanted to spend his last few months playing basketball.”

A Time to Hurt

Retirement didn’t suit Johnson, especially because he had no apparent symptoms. An appearance in the 1992 NBA All-Star game and on the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team convinced Johnson he could return.

But others were fearful the disease could be spread on the court. The wife of one NBA player was heard telling him, “All you have to do is slash your wrist before you drive down the lane and nobody will get in your way.” Phoenix Suns managing general partner Jerry Colangelo and Utah forward Karl Malone also expressed concerns. Johnson says they had other motives: “They knew they were never going to beat us until they got me out of there.”

But what hurt most were remarks attributed to Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons, once his closest friend, so close that he and Johnson exchanged pecks on the cheek before the opening tipoff when their teams played.

Thomas was quoted as questioning whether Johnson acquired the virus through homosexual contact.

Johnson had made no secret of his wild ways, which included sex with as many as six women at one time. He says he got the virus from a woman, but does not know who.

“All my good friends came out and supported me, except him,” Johnson says of Thomas. Says Rosen, “Earvin was furious. It wasn’t that he has anything against gays. It was that he thought this was hurting the message that heterosexuals can also get the HIV virus if they don’t practice safe sex.”

Thomas, now the coach of the Indiana Pacers, insists he never even hinted Johnson might have had a homosexual relationship.

“I never said it,” Thomas says. “I reached out several times to [Johnson]. I went out to L.A. to try and see him, but he wouldn’t see me.”

It is ironic, Thomas says, that he would be accused of spreading harmful gossip about someone who was HIV-positive because Thomas’ own brother, Gregory Maurice, suffered from the disease.

“My brother lived with it for 15 years,” Thomas says, “before he finally died from abusing drugs and alcohol at age 49. I knew more about the disease than [Johnson] did, but I never got the chance to tell him that.”

Thomas says he used his influence as head of the NBA Players’ Assn. to see that Johnson’s experience in the 1992 All-Star game was a pleasant one. “Some of the players didn’t want him to play,” Thomas says. “I told them, ‘We are going to deal with it. You can hug him. You can kiss him and you won’t be affected.”’

Johnson and Thomas finally patched up their relationship the night the Lakers won the 1999-2000 NBA championship.

“I told him, ‘You were looking at this all wrong,”’ Thomas says. “I’m the guy who was kissing you at half-court. Why am I going to say you are gay? If anything, I’m going to say you were straight, real straight.”

There were two failed comeback attempts for Johnson. His first comeback, in 1992, ended in the exhibition season when a cut on his arm elicited a look of horror from other players. A second try, in 1996, convinced Johnson he no longer had the magic. He also tried coaching the Lakers at the end of the 1993-94 season.

“I was so intent on going back to the NBA,” Johnson says, “that I didn’t realize there were some really nice things waiting for me when I was done.”

A Time to Reap

As a teenager, Johnson did janitorial work in a Lansing, Mich., office building. When alone, he would sit in the CEO’s chair, prop his feet up and dream of running board meetings.

Today, it’s no dream. Johnson and several fellow investors recently purchased the Fatburger chain. There are currently 50 restaurants, and Johnson hopes to at least double that number in five years.

Says Southern California restaurant consultant Randall Hiatt: “He’s in with some real strong players, and he has a good shot at growing that brand.... Clearly, he can bring people onto the development side, and as far as the money and investment groups are concerned, he has a magic name.”

Johnson already has joint venture agreements with Starbucks coffee stores, Loews movie theaters, TGI Friday’s restaurants, and 24-hour Fitness Clubs to build and run franchises in urban markets. Of these, Starbucks is the biggest with 24 stores and plans for 25 more.

Johnson and his associates have raised $70 million to build and renovate shopping malls, and he has purchased his first one in Milwaukee. He also has smaller shopping plazas in L.A. and Las Vegas.

And he remains active in the endorsement field, and in basketball camps for kids and adults.

“What he’s doing is building a brand name,” says Warren Grant, who has handled Johnson’s finances for 15 years. “He’s leaving a legacy.”

But not leaving it to others just yet.

There are no basketball trophies in his offices, only awards and honors from the business world. And his uniform is now a three-piece suit. But Johnson has his large hands on the controls in the boardroom just as much as he did on the court.

And his presence in the office elicits the same type of respect from his employees that he got from his teammates on the court.

“I feel like I’m working for an American hero, a legend,” says Kimberley Ingram, director of development for Johnson. “This is not a showplace here. This is a serious business enterprise.”

Johnson lends more than his name and his smile to his various interests, those around him say. When he visits his theaters, he gets behind the counter to sell tickets and popcorn. When he visits Starbucks, he makes the coffee. When he builds a restaurant, he oversees the menu.

The ledger sheets on all his businesses are regularly compiled in a thick book that Johnson carries around for review when time allows.

Even established businesses are tailored to the African American community, and many carry his name, such as Magic Johnson’s Friday’s.

“The people in our community haven’t had a place to hang out,” Johnson says. “They shouldn’t have to drive 20 to 30 minutes to get a salad and a cup of coffee. There has been a pressing need.”

The menus include sweet-potato pie at his Starbucks and sour-apple martinis at his Friday’s, he says.

“That kind of stuff is big in our community. If you want to make money, you have to know your customers,” Johnson says.

Grant isn’t surprised a basketball giant who came out of college early can successfully compete with financial giants.

“He’s clearly motivated,” Grant says. “He surrounds himself with good people, he listens to advice, he makes good, informed decisions and he has good instincts about what works for him.”

Not always. His brief run as a talk-show host flopped in 1998.

Johnson spends the first six hours of his day working out, including running, lifting weights in the gym or playing on a basketball court. Johnson believes his vigorous workout schedule has helped him keep the disease under control.

“Whatever he thinks works is fine with me,” Mellman says. “We have encouraged him to remain as physically fit as possible.”

Although he won’t reveal the specific medication Johnson takes, Mellman says advances in medicine in the last 10 years have enabled Johnson to go from taking it every four to six hours to taking it twice a day.

Although Johnson likes to say the virus is no longer detectable in his blood, he is not cured.

“It’s a matter of semantics,” Mellman says. “You can say you can’t find it in his blood, but we know it is in his blood in a dormant state.”

According to Ho, Johnson’s T-cell count, once dangerously low, is now elevated to the low end of the normal range.

Johnson’s condition is not unique. Medical advances are helping people with AIDS and the virus live longer, more productive lives. The number of people surviving with AIDS is six times greater than it was in 1996, Ho said.

Still, an estimated 15,000 people will die of the disease this year in this country. And of the 40,000 new cases expected this year, half will be in the minority communities, Ho said.

Johnson’s ability to remain free of symptoms has sent the wrong message to some in the African American community.

“For people not interested in getting all the facts, [they look at Johnson], and the feeling is that AIDS is not that bad of a deal,” Wilson says.

He says he wishes Johnson would do more to raise awareness in the black community, but stressed that he is not being critical, as some have been.

“It’s not fair or appropriate to put the entire burden of AIDS awareness on Magic’s shoulders,” Wilson says. “It’s the responsibility of all of us to stop the epidemic.”

“He [Johnson] has so many causes, he has to divide his time,” Ho says. “You can’t expect him to wave the AIDS flag all the time.”

Johnson’s biggest contribution, however, may have been his admission that he has the virus.

“He was willing to hold his head high in society,” Mellman says. “Others might have panicked and that would have been a tragedy.... He has done more than any other individual I can think of in terms of public awareness. I think if the president of the United States had contracted this disease, he could not have done any better....

“I’m just glad to be talking about him doing so well 10 years later. And hopefully, we’ll still be talking like this 10 years from now.”