lier this year was not merely another event in his public life--it was a major event, one to which the public responded so favorably that it puzzled many given that Johnson had not played in so long and that he was not up to his usual ability when he did:
Yet grown men in Armani suits waited an hour outside the arena doors just for a glimpse of him. Women begged to kiss him. The newspapers played it Page One, above the fold. Giddy scalpers were suddenly asking $10,000 for four tickets. Movie stars hopped charter jets from the East Coast just to say they were courtside (Reilly, 1996, 24).
This event contrasts with an earlier time when Johnson played in an All-Star Game three months after announcing his retirement, and he notes in his autobiography that some people were convinced he could not play and others that he should not have given his HIV status:
But I had something to prove. From the moment I discovered that I had this terrible virus, I knew I wanted to keep on playing. That's part of what this All-Star Game is about for me. I want to show myself, and everybody else, that I can still play basketball like I used to (Johnson and Novak, 1992, xi).
Presumably five years later this was a rationale for why he returned to the court once more, the need to prove that he could still play the game.
The key struggle for Johnson developed from his HIV-positive status, for otherwise the course of his life, both private and public, would be very different. The public response to him would be different as well--favorable, of course, as it was in the past, but following his career trajectory in a more normal manner. Johnson would play until he began to fail to keep up with younger players. He would retire. All this would be in an accepted structure. The demand for his services would wane along with his physical abilities, and he would move into other endeavors relatively intact, though not necessarily with the sort o...