Magic Johnson

Johnson has also been busy overseeing a number of business ventures, primarily aimed at revitalizing poor, largely African American urban areas and specifically targeting African American patrons. His $500 million Magic Johnson Enterprises includes shopping plazas in Las Vegas and Los Angeles; part-ownership of movie theaters in Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles and New York City; and part ownership in twenty-six Starbucks stores, with commitments to build nineteen others. True to his "do what can't be done" ethos, Johnson is the only outsider to enter into a financial partnership with Starbucks. "We always said no," Starbucks Corporation CEO Howard Schultz told Sports Illustrated. "But Magic had a vision, an idea, a genuine commitment to create a business in an underserved community that was both profitable and benevolent." Johnson attributes his business success to the same driven personality that allowed him to dazzle on-court in the face of his high school basketball hecklers. "I got turned on when people said it was all over for me," he told Sports Illustrated. "I wanted to show them I wasn't going away." Johnson's short-lived 1998 talk show met with less success and was cancelled after two months.

Johnson has not left basketball completely. In addition to a brief return to the Lakers in 1996 and a glorious stint on the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic "Dream Team" in 1992, he formed and coached a traveling exhibition team, "Magic Johnson All-Stars" and coached his old team, the Lakers, for fifteen games during the 1993-94 season, after which he decided to move up in the ranks and become an executive with and minority owner of the team. For all he contributed to the game, he was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002. A decade after his whole life took such an unforeseeable shift, Johnson reflected on all he had achieved, and all he still would like to, with the trademark optimism that has been key to both his on- and off-court success and popularity. "Everything is for a reason; I don't go back," he told Sports Illustrated. "HIV happened for a reason. I'm a person who moves forward, and I continue to do it."