Day Eighty Eight - 15 Years Later
Boring update as far as training goes. 1 hour on the cross trainer last night after work. Got a nice sweat going, felt great. The end.
When I got home last night I flipped on SportsCenter and they were running a story about the 15 year anniversary of Magic Johnson's announcement that he was HIV positive. I watched the segment in disbelief. I was 15 years old when he made that announcement and now I'm 30. It was half a lifetime ago, but in some ways it feels like last week. I remember, I was on the Tolland High football team at the time and we had just come in from a practice. The coach told us that Magic Johnson had AIDS. We were completely shocked. I could see highlights of his press conference on a TV in the coach's office. Unreal.
I grew up a Celtics fan, thus it was a rule that I hate the Lakers, and especially Magic Johnson - how could I not after the baby hook? In all my life I have found few things to rival the pure hatred of a sports rival. And here was the most infamous Laker - the one that beat Bird in the NCAA's and the one with more MVP's than Larry Legend - announcing, basically, that he was dying. That's what we thought then anyway. In a weird way I shoulda been happy, right? But I wasn't. I was devastated. Because even Larry's rival was a hero in some twisted way and to see him taken down from his perch because of his humanity was shattering. It transcended a rivalry. His mortality made Bird and the Celtics that much more human in my eyes.
I don't think I've ever "hated" an athlete the same way again. Not like I used to. And that probably would have happened anyway as I got older and gave less of myself to sports fandom, but it happened then because of Magic. I rooted for Magic the next year at the All Star Game and I rooted for him in the Olympics and I rooted for him when he made his comeback. It no longer mattered that he broke my heart as a Laker because I realized how lucky we were to get to see him play at all.
I'm not saying anything you haven't heard before. And I don't want to pretend that Magic is a victim or that he is any more heroic then anyone else who gets up every day to stare AIDS in the face and go on with their life. In fact, Magic has had every advantage in fighting this disease. I'm just happy that at the end of the day Magic has shown the world that AIDS doesn't have to be a death sentence. Just because that has more to do with his bank account than anything else right now doesn't change the fact that we can survive with AIDS. The treatment is there - now it's just a point of making it available to everyone who needs it. Magic put a vibrant, healthy and most important, straight face on the AIDS epidemic, and he has accepted his position as an advocate for education and change like a champion, and I am thankful for that. Without him it wouldn't be too hard to assume that AIDS would have remained a "fringe" or "gay" issue, which it never truly was in the first place.
I'm raising funds for this marathon in the name of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to fund research and help find a cure for cancer, but we can't forget that the threat of AIDS still looms, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa and that money and education are the biggest obstacles in getting the crisis under control. If you are looking for an additional charity to donate some money too this year (and gifts in someone's name make a great holiday offering) I would recommend The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (http://www.pedaids.org/). An organizational and efficiency rating for the charity can be found here: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4310
I guess that's about it for today. Thanks for sticking with me through a relatively major digression. More tomorrow...
When I got home last night I flipped on SportsCenter and they were running a story about the 15 year anniversary of Magic Johnson's announcement that he was HIV positive. I watched the segment in disbelief. I was 15 years old when he made that announcement and now I'm 30. It was half a lifetime ago, but in some ways it feels like last week. I remember, I was on the Tolland High football team at the time and we had just come in from a practice. The coach told us that Magic Johnson had AIDS. We were completely shocked. I could see highlights of his press conference on a TV in the coach's office. Unreal.
I grew up a Celtics fan, thus it was a rule that I hate the Lakers, and especially Magic Johnson - how could I not after the baby hook? In all my life I have found few things to rival the pure hatred of a sports rival. And here was the most infamous Laker - the one that beat Bird in the NCAA's and the one with more MVP's than Larry Legend - announcing, basically, that he was dying. That's what we thought then anyway. In a weird way I shoulda been happy, right? But I wasn't. I was devastated. Because even Larry's rival was a hero in some twisted way and to see him taken down from his perch because of his humanity was shattering. It transcended a rivalry. His mortality made Bird and the Celtics that much more human in my eyes.
I don't think I've ever "hated" an athlete the same way again. Not like I used to. And that probably would have happened anyway as I got older and gave less of myself to sports fandom, but it happened then because of Magic. I rooted for Magic the next year at the All Star Game and I rooted for him in the Olympics and I rooted for him when he made his comeback. It no longer mattered that he broke my heart as a Laker because I realized how lucky we were to get to see him play at all.
I'm not saying anything you haven't heard before. And I don't want to pretend that Magic is a victim or that he is any more heroic then anyone else who gets up every day to stare AIDS in the face and go on with their life. In fact, Magic has had every advantage in fighting this disease. I'm just happy that at the end of the day Magic has shown the world that AIDS doesn't have to be a death sentence. Just because that has more to do with his bank account than anything else right now doesn't change the fact that we can survive with AIDS. The treatment is there - now it's just a point of making it available to everyone who needs it. Magic put a vibrant, healthy and most important, straight face on the AIDS epidemic, and he has accepted his position as an advocate for education and change like a champion, and I am thankful for that. Without him it wouldn't be too hard to assume that AIDS would have remained a "fringe" or "gay" issue, which it never truly was in the first place.
I'm raising funds for this marathon in the name of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to fund research and help find a cure for cancer, but we can't forget that the threat of AIDS still looms, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa and that money and education are the biggest obstacles in getting the crisis under control. If you are looking for an additional charity to donate some money too this year (and gifts in someone's name make a great holiday offering) I would recommend The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (http://www.pedaids.org/). An organizational and efficiency rating for the charity can be found here: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4310
I guess that's about it for today. Thanks for sticking with me through a relatively major digression. More tomorrow...
posted by Demps at 7:58 AM
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