The Announcement

A few weeks ago I watched "The Announcement" on ESPN and was moved beyond belief.  This doesn't happen to me much when I watch TV.  I watched the entire show and came away with two lasting impressions.

1) I truly admire Magics courage that he continues to show.
2) My entire view of Pat Riley has changed for the better.

Growing up I was always a Jordan fan.  My father is still paying off the credit card debt due to my purchasing of all the Jordan shoes as soon as they came out.  Therefore, I didn't care much for Larry Bird or Magic.  I hated the Lakers.  They were everything I wasn't.  However, I remember the day when Magic Johnson announced he was HIV positive.  I had track practice for St. M.M. at Eastern High School.  It was a colder October day.  I figured like many other people that Magic was on borrowed time.  It wouldn't be long before he would be literally a skeleton of his former self and he would die.  The name Freddy Mercury meant little to me, AIDS was just something I saw on the news every so often.  Magic, an NBA MEGAstar, was a different story.  It had a profound effect on a young boy way across the country.  Magic didn't get it from drug use, didn't get it from a transfusion, he got it from sex.  You hate for anyone to catch this disease, regardless of how they obtain it, but no one should die from having sex.  HIV is a horrific, embarrassing, illness.  Magic could have reacted a lot of ways to this situation.   He was recently married and his wife was pregnant.  He could have retired and retreated from the spotlight.  He didn't do that.  To some degree he continued to play, earning another All Star MVP and a gold medal.   He attacked the virus the same way he attacked a fast break.  20 years later he looks better than most "healthy" people.  Magic has built a financial empire, and gives back to so many people who can't afford treatment for HIV.  Through all of this, Magic has taught us two very important lessons.  1) It CAN happen to anyone.  Not just a homosexual in West Hollywood.  2) We are all on borrowed time, too often we forget that.

Despite how impressed I was with Magic, I walked away being equally as impressed with Pat Riley.  I knew very little about Pat Riley prior to this show and perhaps I still don't.  What I thought I knew, I never really liked.  The slicked back hair, the Lakers (not the Bulls), the Knicks (not the Bulls), the SHOWTIME, the flash, Yankee, etc.  I just never really liked the guy.  I always thought that his two best qualities were the fact that he was a Greek from The University of Kentucky.  After all, UK does produce great Greeks!  I was absolutely floored at the compassion, emotion and support that Riley showed Magic.  It is easy for us to sit back today and proclaim that we would do the same thing.  When you put it in the context of the day and time, it was pretty remarkable.  Coach Riley cried when he heard the news, openly hugged Magic when many people didn't want to literally touch someone with HIV, offered Magic a chance to play basketball with him at NY and didn't shun Magic the way many "friends" did.   Rarely have I been more proud of a UK graduate than I was with the way Pat Riley handled that situation.  Who knows what Riley's legacy will be?  It might be the fact that he was one of Rupp's Runts, the team that lost to Texas Western in 1966.  It might be the his 9 year NBA career.  Maybe the fact that he was 3 time NBA Coach of the Year, and 5 time NBA Champion.  It might be all of it.  It should be the class he showed to Magic Johnson.  That is a legacy we should all hope to obtain in our own lives, and the only part of Pat's legacy that we (with our limited basketball coaching/playing skills) might actually hope to obtain.

ESPN does a lot of great shows when it comes to their 30 for 30 series.  Please take 90 minutes to watch this program.  It probably won't change you're life forever, but I think it will make it better.

UPDATE: Magic now owns part of the Dodgers.  Congrats Magic.