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Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 2102
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 09:32 am: | 
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Today's players don't heed Magic's tale
After 15 years, shock of Johnson's admission of HIV has sadly faded
By Sean Deveney
Nov 7, 2006
There still are stories that bring chuckles because, well, guys are guys and even if our brains are lifted from the gutter, we never really get them out of the locker room. So, there's the one about the rookie who brought his "girlfriend" to NBA All-Star weekend and introduced her to some veteran players — who already knew her well because she was an established league groupie.
And there's the one about the NBA player on the road who, when hotel personnel suggested that he check into his room under an alias, declared, "Alias? Any girl wants to come up to my room, send her up!"
There's also the old joke, which goes, "What's the hardest thing about going on the road? Trying not to smile when you kiss your wife goodbye."
That last line comes from the autobiography of Magic Johnson. Yeah. Kind of knocks the grin off your face, doesn't it?
It was 15 years ago this week that Johnson announced he was HIV-positive. Since then, he has become a bustling businessman and TV analyst while changing perceptions and raising awareness in the fight against HIV and AIDS. In most places, at least. One place where his lesson has gone generally unheeded: the very NBA locker rooms he once inhabited.
Give the league credit -- it has tried. At the annual rookie training seminar, the NBA gives incoming players a full breakdown of the pitfalls they'll face dealing with, um, adult situations, especially on the road. There's a skit. There are discussions with people who are HIV-positive. Sometimes the lesson gets through. Not every pro athlete is a skirt-chasing hound; many are good husbands and fathers.
Still, the NBA remains a place where zippers have a difficult time remaining in place, where "free throw" takes on a whole new meaning after the game. "If they've learned so much from the Magic Johnson thing," says one NBA agent, "then why is there still a 'Ho Row' at every NBA arena?" Denizens of Ho Row, the agent jokes, "get better seats than the wives." At least I think he was joking.
Magic's announcement was a punch to the gut for players in 1991, but guts heal. "I remember I was driving back from practice in my truck on Route 77 in Charlotte," says former NBA guard Kendall Gill. "I heard it and I thought, 'This is going to change everything.' Then my mom called me and told me. She gave me a warning, too."
The NBA indoctrination, the warnings from Mom, the shock of hearing Johnson say, "Here I am saying it can happen to anybody, even me, Magic Johnson," all stuck with players at the time. It did not stop the hanky-panky, but Gill says, "Condoms, that changed. Everyone got more educated on those."
Fifteen years is an eternity, though, and as the ebb of retiring players meets the flow of newcomers, Magic's disease seems distant. Only four players in today's NBA were on rosters in 1991. Lakers center Andrew Bynum, the youngest player in the league, was 4. Can guys who were in Pampers at the time be inspired to wear Trojans now?
"It is disappointing," says Eddie Johnson, who was in his 10th season in 1991 and now is a Suns broadcaster. "But it seems to me we are back to the old ways. For those of us who were playing at the time, hearing Magic say he had HIV was something that made us all feel like we were not invincible. If it can happen to Magic, it can happen to anyone. But you can't explain that to someone who was not close to the situation. Life doesn't work like that."
No, life is mistakes, learning from mistakes, then forgetting those mistakes altogether. From time to time, a young player with versatile on-court skills enters the league and is described as the next Magic Johnson. Makes you wonder who the next off-court Magic Johnson will be.
© 2006 The Sporting News
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15607286
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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2961
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 09:53 am: |
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A hard d*** has no conscience.
People still drink and drive, play Russian Roulette, use their credit cards to pay for the motel room when they cheat on their spouses, etc etc etc.
Just try not to be one of the damned
But you can watch your health, do the right thing, say your prayers and you are going to end up in the same six foot hole as the sinners, so there it is. |
Brownbeauty123
Veteran Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 1298
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 10:42 am: |
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I enjoyed his interview on Oprah. It made me like him even more. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 5747
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 11:14 am: |
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Magic Johnson is really not a good poster boy for safe sex. He didn't practice it and look where it got him. To the top of the pinnacle of success; he is a millionaire entrepreneur and remains a legendary basketball hero, and above all, is somebody who is not greatly hampered by being HIV positive. A young jock will look at him and shrug. Then proceed to hop in the bed with the skank who is banking on him not using birth control because unprotected sex increases her chances of getting pregnant and hittin the jackpot. |
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