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
I just signed a deal with 24 Hour Fitness. We're going to build those in the inner cities as well, ... I'm just happy that my businesses are doing well and that they're supplying jobs to those minorities, and for those communities.
My dad worked two jobs his whole life, and so I told him he's the reason I have 20 jobs.
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.
My father is my idol, so I always did everything like him. He used to work two jobs and still come home happy every night.
And the road games would have been worse.
We were doing inventory and I said, 'Okay, I know the inner city. I know how we do when we go to movies. These hot dogs are going to be gone the first week.' (They say,) 'No way, no way. We don't sell that much over at such and such.' What happens? We open on a Friday, the hot dogs are gone by Sunday? by Sunday!
Believe it or not, I was once just like you, ... I was sitting in a school just like this. I had dreams and goals just like you and never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be Magic Johnson.
The success we had back then or now doesn't mean we'll have that success five years from now, ... We don't have any competition. That's the main thing.
Probably impossible, almost, for the Lakers to make it with the road schedule they have.
No doubt about it, the landscape and your opportunities are so much greater here in the U.S. than in any other country, and if you come up with a great idea, and then put a great business plan with it, and you can get the capital, then the sky's the limit,
I am so blessed and lucky to be able to find something I truly love and I'm passionate about and that I'm having so much fun doing,
People will live here, work here and shop here,
Los Angeles was jump-started by the construction of the Staples Center.