Magic Johnson erased our smile and took away our momentary hope for basketball

It was the morning of November 8, 1991 in Spain, the night of November 7, on the West Coast of the United States. I still remember how I woke up that morning, while my father listened to the late Antonio Herrero on the radio. I didn’t used to pay much attention to morning newsletters. Perhaps because he was still a child. Or maybe because he was still a prey to sleep. But that Friday everything was different. I was paralyzed. I couldn’t get out of bed. He had just heard the sound of a bomb. ” Magic Johnson , the NBA star, has announced that he is leaving basketball after contracting HIV.” A phrase that still remains in the memory of millions of fans around the world today.I barely managed to prepare for school that day. I was in shock. The man with the eternal smile turned off his wand because of a virus (and his sexual affairs , something that as a child he was not yet able to see) and left the basketball in the dark. That day in the yard, while talking about Magic with other children, I could not play to try to hit a basket. It did not make sense.I got home at lunchtime and that’s when I realized it was all true. The news broadcast the images and what until then I thought was still a dream, became reality. In front of the microphone, a Magic dressed in a dark suit and with a serious face but without breaking down, announced that basketball was losing its smile . A torpedo on the waterline of a sport that he himself had revived with his unimaginable passes and, above all, with his charisma.

Only seven people knew the news before that day. His wife Cookie, his son Andre (the fruit of a previous adventure), David Stern, his great friend Arsenio Hall and his greats Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas . Magic later confessed that the Celtics forward could not hold back his tears and that the Pistons point guard directly denied the possibility that the news was true. Jordan, for his part, could not speak.It was time to tell the rest of the Lakers. Hours before the press conference Magic entered the locker room and communicated the news to his teammates. They all burst into tears. It was the most emotional moment of the whole process. After wiping away her tears, she had to face the world.Magic Johnson, an elite athlete, was a carrier of a disease that, at that time, was related to drugs and homosexuality . Promiscuity and carelessness had brought one of his great stars down from the sky and turned him into a common mortal. The news that Magic carried HIV normalized the disease and dealt an almost fatal blow to a sport in need of idols and references like himIt was for that child who that day did not want to get out of bed so as not to face the fact that he would no longer see those impossible assistances that he later tried to photocopy unsuccessfully at his playground. However, what Magic was doing at that time, was giving a new assist. Perhaps the greatest of his career helping to give birth to a disease little known until then. A taboo that little by little began to be visualized thanks to a former magical player who helped to magnify the sport first and later another very different fight.