Magic Johnson
Magic Johnson
Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr.is an American retired professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Associationfor 13 seasons. After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA draft by the Lakers. He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth14 August 1959
CityLansing, MI
CountryUnited States of America
People see me high-fivin' and smiling on the court, and they don't think that's me. But it is. I just want to go out and be myself.
I look three to five years ahead, not 10 years behind.
Sometimes friends move apart from each other for whatever reason.
I often tell people when you make a mistake, you not only hurt yourself, but you hurt the ones that love you.
I am and will always be a Laker for life.
When a woman is frustrated, and it's your wife, you as the husband get that frustration.
I try to hire people I don't have to motivate. But I do motivate the people working with and for me.
Athletes don't like to get up early, but it never bothered me.
No one plans to get sick or hurt - I certainly didn't - but most people will need medical care at some point in their lives.
My first and only experience in baseball, the coach signed me up; he didn't tell me there's a thing called the curveball. I didn't know that. So the ball's coming at me and I start backing out, and then it broke inside. And the umpire says, 'Strike one!' And I'm saying, 'How is that a strike? It almost hit me!'
I'm the one who started redevelopment in South Los Angeles, not Jan Perry. I did it. I love Jan. She's a good person, and she did a wonderful job with what she did downtown, but in L.A., South L.A., I'm the one.
I'm building shopping centers and movie theaters in the inner cities. So that means supplying jobs and letting blacks understand that we have to build our communities back, not looking to anybody else.
I got blessed from my mom. She's the personality; she's the one who smiled, so I took on part of her, and who also wanted to help and save the world. Then I took on part of my dad, who is tough.
I do not have bad days. I don't wake up in the morning and think that I'm going to get AIDS. I don't dream bad dreams about it. If I did, I'd be giving in to the negativity.