Basketball legend Johnson due here for a special visit
By K. Basrie
JAKARTA (JP): This is Indonesia's first major sports story in 1997 -- basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson is due here for the first time after his January 1994 ban from entering the country due to him being HIV positive was formerly lifted last month.
If everything goes as planned, the former American NBA star -- along with nine other members of the All Stars team -- will arrive here Tuesday to meet fans and to play two friendly matches.
"We obtained government approval in November to invite Magic Johnson but the approval was publicly announced only on Dec. 17 by Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Azwar Anas," Ary Sudarsono, the host of the one-off event, told The Jakarta Post.
According to Ary, Johnson and his teammates, who will be here for four days, will challenge the Indonesia Muda and Satria Muda teams on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9 respectively at the Senayan Indoor Stadium.
He said that a total of 20,000 seats -- with tickets costing between Rp 50,000 and Rp 225,000 (US$21 and $94.50) -- have been prepared for the Magic Johnson All Stars shows.
The revenue collected from the two matches will be donated to AIDS campaign activities in Indonesia.
On the day of their arrival, the team is scheduled to meet fans at the Blok M Plaza shopping arcade.
During their visit here, the team will stay at the Sari Pan Pacific hotel, which has made special arrangements, such as installing a job lot of triple-XL beds, for the visiting giants. All of them are more than two meters tall and weigh more than 100 kilograms.
The always-joyful Johnson shocked the basketball world on Nov. 7, 1991, when he made two personal announcements: first, he was infected with HIV, the virus that can lead to AIDS, and second, he was retiring from the sport.
Since then, he has become a poster boy for AIDS campaigners and has been dedicating his life to the fight against AIDS and to enliven the spirit of those in the same boat as him.
Early last year, Johnson, who used to be an LA Lakers star, rocked both basketball and the medical world by announcing his second comeback, leaving fans and doctors in turn both curious and anxious about his HIV status. His first comeback was made in February 1992 in Orlando, Florida, by playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Stars Game.
Childhood
Born on Aug. 14, 1959, Johnson grew up with his big, loving family at their modest house in the friendly neighborhood of Middle Street in the small town of Lansing, Michigan.
He is the fourth of the seven children of Earvin and Christine Johnson. His father had a strong sense of discipline and his mother was very religious, but both have always had tender hearts.
"I was chubby before I grew tall," Johnson recalled in his autobiography My Life, written with William Novak.
His parents called him Junior but friends named him E.J., or just E. His neighbors used to call him Crazy June Bug, and he hooped all day.
Johnson was introduced to basketball through television and practiced with his father who was a basketball enthusiast.
"My Dad didn't have much free time when I was a kid, but on Sunday afternoons we sat together in the living room and watched NBA games on television," Johnson said.
During the games, his father would point out the subtleties of the pick-and-roll play and explain various defensive strategies.
Normally, his father fell asleep as the game drew to a close.
"I'd run to the Main Street court at the schoolyard to practice some of the moves," Johnson said.
But sometimes, his father came with him. "Sometimes he held me with one hand while he shot with the other. He poked me in the ribs and pushed me and grabbed me all over the court ... and said that's not a foul," the star said.
Little Johnson always liked to play fantasy full-court games with top teams at that time.
He then worked hard to become a real basketball star.
He practiced a lot, starting from dribbling, fingertip control and defensive moving to passing, shooting drills and body exercising.
"No matter what else I was doing, I always had a basketball in my hand," Johnson said.
Even when running an errand for his mother, he dribbled on the way to the store, sometimes even with a bag of goods in his other hand.
"Just to make it interesting, I'd alternate right hand and left, block by block," he said.
For Johnson Jr. himself, he never dreamed of earning a living as a basketball player. His childhood dream was to be rich, so he could afford to buy a big house with a gigantic bathtub and drive nice cars.
Clothing was a special problem for him because of his size, which changed every two weeks.
His brothers and sisters are all taller than average, but nothing like him. Johnson is now 2.06 meters.
That's why, at the age of 10 he earned his own living by raking leaves, cleaning yards and shoveling snow in the neighborhood.
When he was 11, Johnson had a golden opportunity to meet with his favorite player, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, for an autograph.
However, he failed to follow the other kids because he was so nervous that he could not even open his mouth, he said later.
A few years later, Kareem became his most important teammate.
Ticket to success
His first team was in the fifth-grade at school. However, he missed a championship game after his teacher prohibited him from joining the team because he refused to do his homework.
He cried and did not speak to the teacher for weeks.
In the second team while he was at junior high, he was trained by several coaches.
Since then, Johnson kept on playing in any possible league and in every pickup game he could find around Lansing.
"Sometimes I walked all the way over to the south side just to play ball. Wherever there was a game, that's where you'd find me," Johnson said.
He tasted fame for the first time when he was at junior high school.
Talking about his talent, Johnson said always had doubts in the beginning.
"It wasn't until the eighth grade that I began to realize that I might have a future in basketball," he recalled.
His star started twinkling at Sexton High. But he never stopped practicing. From high school through the Lakers, he always played as intensely in practice as he did in the game.
"Some players take it easy during practice. They coast and don't go until the actual game. I've never understood that mentality. To me, when you're turning that switch on and off, there's always the danger that it can get stuck in 'off'," Johnson said.
Johnson was just 15 when sportswriter Fred Stabley Jr. of the Lansing State Journal wrote an article about him as Earvin "Magic" Johnson.
Many people in Lansing liked the name, Johnson said, but not his parents. His father felt it was too much for any player to live up to. Reminding him not to forget that his talent was a God-given gift, his religious mother felt that the sobriquet "magic" bordered on blasphemy.
Even his coach hated the name. For Pat Riley, Lakers' coach during most of Johnson's 12-year NBA career, the word sounded as if he didn't practice hard.
But Johnson saw it as a great challenge. He then became one of the youngest players in NBA finals history. He is also one of the greatest players in NBA history.
He led the successful team from Michigan's Everett High School to the State Championship. And he has won three NBA MVP awards.
Johnson first learned that he was infected with HIV on Oct. 25, 1991 when his team's physician, Dr. Michael Mellman, told him about the result of his life-insurance physical.
The news shocked him badly.
In his book Johnson admitted that he often had sex with women on tours across the States but he often denied that he was gay or bisexual.
"People make all kind of choices in their lives. Some drink. Some smoke. Some eat too much. that wasn't me. My pleasure was being with women."
"But I don't know who gave HIV to me," he insisted.
Comeback
It seems Johnson will never bow to the deadly virus.
During the past four years, for instance, Johnson has led a full life.
He was a member of the first American Dream Team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games which easily won the gold medal.
He runs several business projects, including the Magic Johnson Movie Theaters in Crenshaw, Los Angeles.
With his wife Earleatha Kelly, called Cookie, Johnson has three children; Andre, 13, the four-year-old Earvin Johnson III. and in 1995, they adopted a baby girl.
Johnson also organized a worldwide touring basketball company to raise money and awareness of the fight against AIDS.
All his efforts, including his second return, are strongly supported by his family, teammates and his rivals.
The return of Johnson to the basketball court leaves one question regarding with his HIV status: Is Magic's life a miracle?
Or, is it part of his mission to tell tens of thousands of people with AIDS and HIV around the globe that they should not give up and believe the "guaranteed death" hype?
Whatever it is, many people in this country and region are waiting for him to lobby governments and the rich to intensify their efforts in the fight against AIDS.