a hero for having the courage to reveal his infection and for committing his time and wealth to helping others infected with HIV. However, he caused consternation amongst other professional basketball players in 1992, when he announced that he had grown weary of retirement and was planning to play professional basketball again. His first goal was to join the United States Olympic Team for the Summer 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. Some players on other Olympic teams said that they did not want to play against him for fear that he might infect them with HIV through inevitable bloody contact. A few players on NBA teams expressed similar fears. They said that violent contact during a basketball game was common and that it was not unusual for players to accidentally bleed on each other. They feared that Johnson's blood would make contact with their own blood through open wounds.
Medical experts responded by noting that the possibility of transmitting HIV through open wound contact during a basketball game, or any other sporting event, was minuscule. One doctor went so far as to state that such an event was as likely as "being kicked to death by a duck." The fears of the players, however, could not be so easily assuaged, since they were the ones who were going to come into contact with Johnson. They were the ones who were going to have to face the possibility of being infected by a virus with a mortality rate of 100%. Consequently, Johnson reversed his decision to return to the professional game and the NBA implemented new rules requiring players to leave the game immediately if they were cut during play and requiring trainers to wear gloves when treating these wounds and to handle each player's towels and personal items separately.
The issue of the possibility of transmitting HIV during contact sporting events has refused to die, although Johnson's second comeback in the NBA in 1996 did not generate nearly as m...