Good Times, Bad Times: The Ric Munoz Story, Part 2

“Good times, bad times, you know I’ve had my share … “
- Led Zeppelin, “Good Times Bad Times” (video after post)

**
If you tuned in yesterday, you read the tale of Ric Munoz, an HIV-positive ultrarunner who gained a measure of celebrity from a landmark Nike commercial in the 1990s. Today’s post is a companion piece to that article, offering a little more insight into the journey Ric has experienced as a runner and an HIV advocate.

One of the things that registers with me most profoundly is inadvertent heroism: regular people who unexpectedly face extraordinary circumstances, and rise to the occasion by transforming themselves or others (or often both) in order to overcome the adversity that was thrust upon them. Ric fits that description fairly well; he’d be the first to tell you that he didn’t seek the twists and turns he encountered, but rather, one event led to another, and then to another, and so on. And before you know it, he’s out there inspiring people.

As for the commercial: there’s only one recording of it available on YouTube, and the picture quality is honestly pretty bad. However, it’s decent enough that you can appreciate its visual and emotional impact, from the serenity of Ric floating through Malibu Canyon State Park to the message delivered silently but powerfully with title cards. From my standpoint, the impact was powerful enough that when I saw Ric’s name again some 15 years later, the mental connection wasn’t very far out of reach.

“HIV Runner”, by Nike (click to play):



And now, some excerpts from my interview with Ric Munoz, an everyday runner who has overcome more than his share of obstacles.


Q: Give me a brief overview of your running life before the Nike ad was made. At what age did you start running? What led you to start?

A: I began running in the spring of 1983 at age 25. It was strictly a fluke thing that got me started as I had zero experience (or interest) in the sport. Everything I’ve ever accomplished I owe completely to my friend Teri Tait Gabrielsen – her dogged determination to get me to run thoroughly shaped my destiny.


Q: What are some of your PRs and proudest achievements?

A: 5K: 17:26, June 1992. 10K: 35:40, July 1992. Half Marathon: 1:20:09, January 1993. Marathon: 2:44:13, June 1992

Some of my proudest running achievements, in no particular order:

* 33 sub-3-hour marathon finishes, including 4 sub-2:50s;
* Lifetime average finishing time for the 155 marathons I’ve completed: 3:17:44
* Marathon victory (2:53:21) in December ’98 in Olympia, WA;
* 17 Boston Marathon finishes
* Finishing the 2010 Mother Road 100-Miler in Oklahoma in 29:43:30. I ran the first 50 miles in 9:44:33 while the second half took me 19:58:57 – I felt like quitting at least 100 times, especially when the nighttime temperature got down to 30 degrees. This was a defining moment in my ultramarathoning career – I’ve never felt more miserable in a race. But I got to experience how instantly that misery disappears when the finish line is crossed.
* Running the final 4 miles of the 1991 New York City Marathon backwards – completely unplanned - after my knee blew out at mile 22.

2:44 marathon PR at Grandma's, 1992

Q: What was the your understanding of HIV when you were diagnosed, especially regarding treatment options and life expectancy? What was the experience of some of your HIV+ friends? How did your family react?

A: Friends and acquaintances of mine began dying as early as 1982 and because their deaths were so rapid, I assumed the life expectancy would be very brief after diagnosis. This was scary stuff for a 23-year-old to embrace, but there really wasn’t anything to do except wait and see.

Our running club (Los Angeles Frontrunners) lost at least a dozen members in the 80s alone. Just imagine your own running club and how you’d react to suddenly losing that many members in the space of a few years. For me personally, my two best friends died, one in ’87 at age 33 and the other in ’89 at age 32. It became a mentally challenging game of me waiting for the “other shoe to drop.”

After Ric's first marathon in 1983, with Frontrunner teammate Brad Radke

Despite all this, I remained relatively calm, primarily because I studied the co-factors that the medical community identified as accelerants. That specifically included people who used recreational drugs and drank beer/wine/alcohol (such as my two best friends had done) – they were at much higher risk to develop the full-blown disease. I had not (and have never) indulged in any of those things, so that gave me a ray of hope that I would be spared somehow.

I never discussed the HIV with my family, which consisted of one sole relative, my mother. She was dealing with her own health crisis at the time (terminal breast cancer), so I didn’t want to add to her burden by worrying her with my own. She ultimately died in early 1989. The experience of witnessing how she faced her challenge head-on helped me tremendously to cope with the HIV; her emotional response to the cancer was stoic, matter-of-fact and seemingly fearless. The time I spent with her over the last few months of her life taught me a lot about her mental toughness and I vowed to keep learning from her example as the uncertain future with HIV loomed.


Q: What has your HIV treatment regimen been like over the years? What is your treatment regimen today? And if it's OK to ask, how much does your medical treatment cost from year to year, and do you have any resources to help you afford it?

A: Antiretroviral drugs known as protease inhibitors (PIs) were introduced in the late 90s, and these were the drugs that righted my rapidly sinking ship. I firmly believe that if the PIs had not become available when they did, I very likely would have succumbed to the HIV right around the time I was dealing with the cryptosporidiosis. Comparing notes with other HIV patients over the years, I came to learn the PIs arrived just in the nick of time for them, too. For many of us who managed to “hang on” throughout the 80s and most of the 90s, the PIs definitely saved our lives.

Once my immune system was revitalized by the PI regimen, I was able to eventually stop that regimen; the PI drugs were extremely uncomfortable to take, as many as 18 pills per day, with very unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects. When the NRTI (nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor) class of drugs were introduced, my doctor shifted my treatment to those. These are the treatment drugs I’ve used since the early 2000s.

The combined cost of the two drugs I’m currently on is roughly in the neighborhood of $15,000 per year. Fortunately – and I must stress the word fortunately – health insurance provided by my employer covers the lion’s share of those costs, along with my ongoing check-ups. My husband Seth is HIV positive, and is also covered by my health plan – we’re very fortunate that my employer provides health insurance to same-sex spouses.


Q: Do you have any stories about getting recognized from the commercial?

A: One thing I took great pride in happened about 3 years after the commercial debuted. I was running the Blue Angel Marathon in Pensacola, FL in February ’98 on the day of my 40th birthday (the first and only time I got to do a “birthday” race). My goal that day was to just relax and have a fun, stress-free race. About 10 miles into it, a young man in his early 20s tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was “that guy in the Nike commercial.” I replied yes and added how amazed I was that he remembered. He then asked if I was trying to break 3 hours, and hoped that I was, because that was his goal. But he’d never run that fast before and wasn’t sure he could do it on his own.

I told him I wasn’t planning to run hard (it was my birthday!). I nevertheless saw how important it seemed to be to him, so I finally said “OK” and in offering to pace him, I told him to be prepared to endure a fair amount of discomfort and pain – the latter, I said, would be temporary while the memory of a PR would last forever. Sixteen miles later, he finished in 2:59:02, just ahead of my 2:59:05 and he earned first place in his age division. Helping a complete stranger almost half my age achieve that goal was one of the highlights of my career and a great birthday present to myself – all thanks to the Nike commercial.


Q: What are your running-related goals now? Are there any particular races or events you want to do, or adventures you want to take on?

A: I think the only worlds left to conquer are the multi-day events (48-hour, 72-hour, etc.). I’d also like to run under 20 hours for 100 miles, but that’s a pretty lofty goal, especially for an old mongrel like me. I timed out at mile 35 of this year’s Western States 100, so I’d like to go back to that race one year and complete the whole distance.

At Western States in 2011; Ric has unfinished business there.

My favorite race of all time is the Comrades ultra in South Africa. I would run that race every year forever if I could – my three finishes there were the most fun I’ve ever at any race, anywhere, anytime. The Spartathlon 153-miler in Greece is my only dream race, but I’m much too slow to have any hope of finishing, so I’ll have to experience that one vicariously through others.


Q: Anything else you'd like to tell me about your running, your health status or medical experience, World AIDS Day, or anything else?

A: Here’s a non-running story you might enjoy, especially because you’re a fan of popular music:

Long before running and HIV entered my life, I was a rock and roll super-fan during my teenage years. Along the way I made the acquaintance of Cameron Crowe, a staff writer at Rolling Stone during his own teenage years. Being a fellow Southern California resident, Cameron would see me at many of the major rock concerts that rolled through the L.A. area. One day, in September 1975, he asked me to sit down for an interview and explained he was doing a story for Rolling Stone that would focus on super-fans like me. The story ultimately never ran in the magazine, but I got to keep the photos Cameron’s photographer took that day during the interview. Cameron and I lost touch, of course, as we grew older.

Fast forward to the fall of 2000. I’m sitting in my neighborhood cineplex enjoying the latest film written and directed by Cameron, “Almost Famous.” About 30 minutes into the film, a character appears on the screen. It takes me a microsecond to realize that the character is me, circa 1975! The scene introduces a crazed Led Zeppelin fan marching up and down the lobby of the Continental Hyatt House Hotel while crowing about how the members of Led Zeppelin touched the pen he’s holding in his hand.

That very same scene actually happened in March of 1975, when I ditched high school and hung out in the lobby of that hotel hoping to get the members of Led Zeppelin to autograph one of their album covers. And when I succeeded in doing so, I walked around the lobby of the hotel exclaiming, “Robert Plant touched this pen! Jimmy Page touched this pen! John Paul Jones touched this pen!” Cameron was hanging in the lobby and pulled me aside to get the story of how I got the band members to sign my album cover.

Who knew that 25 years later that scene would appear in his movie? And if there was any doubt in my mind (there was zero doubt) that the character in the film was me, when the end credits began to roll, they listed the character as VIC MUNOZ (portrayed by actor Jay Baruchel). Not that I needed any proof, but there it was – I assume he didn’t use Ric Munoz for the character name because he didn’t get permission from me to use my real name.

It was nonetheless a thrill to see it unfold on screen. It’s now 11 years later and I still can’t believe Cameron put me in his film. I’ve tried reaching him over the years to thank him, but to no avail.

**

Obviously, I owe a huge thanks to Ric for being the focus of my series this week. And in honor of Ric’s super-fandom, one Led Zeppelin tune seems like a perfectly fitting title.

Led Zeppelin, “Good Times, Bad Times” (click to play):





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Running For Life: The Ric Munoz Story

About a year and a half ago, I received a surprise e-mail from a reader who was just writing to say that he liked my website. I get notes like that from time to time – honestly, it’s one of the greatest joys of having a blog – and this particular one didn’t stand out one way or the other.

It wasn’t until I saw the name of the writer, Ric Munoz, that something began to register in my head. It took me a few seconds, but I finally reached back far enough into the mental vault to make the connection – and even then, I wasn’t entirely sure about it. Could that be the same guy? I have no idea whatever happened to him.

I figured the only way to find out for sure was to ask … so in my return e-mail, I threw in this query at the end: Hey - would you happen to be the guy who was in a Nike commercial back in the 1990s?

My initial instinct was correct, as Ric Munoz was indeed the same guy I first noticed in one of the most memorable commercials I’ve ever seen. The fact that he was still alive seemed pretty impressive to me – and as we exchanged more e-mails and I got a fuller sense of his journey over the past 25 years, I realized that his story is even more amazing now than it was back then.

I asked if he was willing to be interviewed sometime, he immediately agreed … and then it took me nearly 18 months to finally get around to taking him up on it. My slacker-ness worked out pretty well, however, when I started eyeing dates to potentially publish a Monterey Herald article about him this fall.

Our column appears in the newspaper every other Thursday, and this year our publication date happens to fall on December 1st, otherwise known as World AIDS Day. It seemed like the ideal occasion to share the story of an individual who shares my passion for ultrarunning while simultaneously providing hope and inspiration for everyone whose lives have been impacted by HIV or AIDS.

I’m breaking this presentation into two parts: today is the extended feature I wrote about Ric, portions of which appear in today’s Herald. Even though I was granted an extended word count, my editor still made me slash about half of my original submission – but the story is really best told in long form. Pour yourself a tall cup of coffee if necessary, then settle in; if the piece is even remotely as uplifting for you to read as it was for me to write, you’ll be glad you did.

Tomorrow, I’ll publish excerpts from my interviews with Ric – along with portions that didn’t make it to the newspaper article – and embed the Nike commercial that piqued my interest in this whole story in the first place.


**
Running Life 12/1/11                “Running for Life”

In January 1987, Ric Munoz sat stoically inside a health clinic, waiting to hear news that he long expected. He was a 28-year-old marathoner who was logging increasing mileage and faster race times with each passing year. He also had very good reason to believe that he might soon be dead.

Munoz’s fears were confirmed that day: his physician informed him that he was HIV+, and that his life expectancy might be as brief as a handful of months. However, on this World AIDS Day 2011, nearly 25 years later, Munoz is not only still among the living, but remains a talented and successful runner well into his 6th decade of life. His story represents not only the tremendous advances in the medical fight against AIDS, but also the healing, life-sustaining benefits that running offers to all of us.

Along the way, he enjoyed 15 minutes of celebrity fame thanks to Nike – but by the time the company discovered him, Munoz had already been been inspiring people and defying conventional wisdom for years. He welcomed the opportunity to be interviewed – at one time, it was something he was very accustomed to – to share the long, strange, often scary but ultimately uplifting adventure his life took after being diagnosed with HIV.

His story began in the spring of 1983, when his friend Teri Tait Gabrielsen kept pestering him to run a 10K with her. Munoz trained with Teri for a few days, mainly so she’d stop nagging him, and he ultimately finished the 10K race. As it often happens with new runners, 10Ks soon turned into marathons, and Munoz discovered his love for the sport. It’s very likely that his journey would have taken a much different turn if not for his “nagging” friend, and Munoz now says that, “Everything I’ve ever accomplished is owed completely to Teri.”

Ric Munoz and Teri Tait Gabrielsen after the New York City Marathon, 1984

For the next few years, Munoz was what anyone would call a strong, healthy recreational runner; he trained 40 miles per week, and entered dozens of road races from 5Ks to marathons. However, he also harbored a nagging certainty that his life was increasingly at risk with each passing day, which ultimately led to his fateful clinic visit in 1987.

Munoz was “100% certain” of what the result would be. Gay media outlets had alerted people to the looming epidemic as early as 1981, and Munoz realized that he was too deep within the circle of impact to emerge unscathed. “If testing had been available in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, I likely would have tested positive then, too, primarily because I was part of the group - sexually active gay men - that was at highest risk.” By the time the mid-1980s rolled around, Munoz had already lost several of his friends and running partners to AIDS-related illnesses.

Accordingly, he received the positive diagnosis with complete calm – in fact, he vividly remembers how stunned the person at the clinic was when Munoz heard his test results. “I’m pretty sure he expected everyone who got a positive test to break down and cry or otherwise collapse emotionally,” he recalls. When you’re 100% certain that something is going to happen, it’s tough to have a look of surprise when you find out you’re correct.

Under the surface, however, the notion of being HIV+ was terrifying. Fatality rates for HIV in the mid-1980s were in the high 90th percentile, making a positive diagnosis akin to a death sentence. Munoz had already seen many close friends die, usually in horrifying fashion as their bodies progressively deteriorated over a period of several months. “The fear level was indescribable,” he stated. “One guy in my neighborhood, upon learning that he definitely had AIDS, killed himself by drinking a bottle of Drano. He was convinced he had no chance to survive.” The pervading hopelessness was like almost nothing else in the history of modern public health.

Like any dedicated runner would do, Munoz used running as an outlet for his sadness, for his anxieties, for all the uncertainty and emotional thunderstorms that accompany such a dire circumstance. “I opted to accelerate my training and racing schedule immediately after the diagnosis,” he says. “I viewed it as counterproductive to wallow in worry or fear about the unknown.” His weekly mileage and training intensity sharply increased, and Munoz began running the fastest times of his life.

Columbus Marathon, 1992

He also noticed that he was very slow to develop any of the tell-tale symptoms of AIDS. At the time, there wasn’t any medical consensus about the impact of exercise in HIV patients, but many feared that physical strain would accelerate the disease process. Munoz challenged his physician: “I put my doctor on the spot and asked if pursuing distance running unchecked would cause the HIV to change from its dormant state to something actively harmful. When he replied, ‘I don’t know,’ that was enough information for me to roll the dice and carry on with my running – an activity I grew to be passionate about and a world I could retreat to indefinitely.”

It wasn’t until several years later that HIV specialists came to accept that physical activity does more help than harm – and it wasn’t until a high-profile superstar athlete contracted HIV that the athletic community felt the impact of what had previously been considered simply a “gay disease”. Ironically, Magic Johnson’s surprise retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers in November 1991 also triggered Ric Munoz’s rise to public prominence as an athlete who had been successfully battling HIV for years.

Munoz is a native Los Angeleno, so when his city went into a frenzy in the wake of Magic Johnson’s announcement, he wrote a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times. “I basically said people were overreacting to Johnson’s news, and that he should work to avoid the ‘death sentence mentality’ maintained by many who were HIV positive. With the right attitude, he still had a long life ahead of him,” he reports.

“Thank goodness I was right! I also pointed out all the marathons I’d run to that point (40) and how I never would have run them if I’d bought into the type of ‘it’s-just-a-matter-of-time-before-he-dies’ speculations that his fans and the media were ignorantly tossing Johnson’s way.” Munoz seemed like a lone voice in the wilderness at the time, but it was hard to argue with his own success: in June 1992, five years after being officially HIV+ and six months after Magic Johnson’s retirement, Munoz ran a lifetime-best 2:44 marathon. He was now running more than 10 marathons per year, and still not showing signs of the disease.

Munoz’s story was compelling enough that the Times did a profile of his marathoning and living with HIV. Over the next couple of years Munoz would be profiled by other publications including the New York Times – and in November 1994, he received a phone call from an advertising agency representing Nike. The company was inspired by his story, and recruited Munoz to appear in one of its popular “Just Do It” television ads.

“I’ll never forget the phone call,” he says, “from the creative executive asking if I’d be interested in appearing in the commercial. I thought he was kidding, of course. But after repeated assurances that Nike was very serious about doing the ad, I immediately agreed.” Sure, the personal exposure would be nice, but Munoz had a higher purpose in mind. “It also occurred to me that if I turned them down, there was a strong possibility the ad might never get made.”

The resulting commercial was filmed in one day on the trails of Malibu Canyon State Park. The director was Joe Pytka, a legendary ad industry figure who was also responsible for Nike’s “Bo Knows” series as well as the Larry Bird / Michael Jordan “Nothin’ But Net” spots for McDonald’s. It’s beautiful in its simplicity: interspersed among scenes of Munoz running on scenic trails, a series of black title cards appear onscreen: Ric Munoz, Los Angeles … 80 miles every week … 10 marathons every year … HIV positive.

Nike’s landmark “HIV Runner” spot premiered on February 9, 1995 during that night’s episode of ER. It had an immediate impact on the running community, and shattered popular misconceptions about living with HIV. Director Joe Pytka later said it was one of his proudest ads, and it was ultimately named one of the 50 greatest TV commercials of all time by Entertainment Weekly magazine. Munoz spent time hobnobbing at Nike headquarters in Oregon and became friends with company founder Phil Knight. The commercial aired globally, and Nike flew Munoz to London to help promote its original airing in England on World AIDS Day 1995.

Alberto Salazar and Ric Munoz at Nike Headquarters, 1995

Of course, fame doesn’t ensure ongoing health, and running doesn’t provide immunity from disease. Munoz had typically been reluctant to take AZT or DDI, the treatment drugs available at the time, because of their significant side effects. “My doctor respected my wishes, but also warned me that one day the HIV would be too strong for my immune system to handle,” he says. The doctor’s prediction came true in 1998, when Munoz acquired an opportunistic infection called cryptosporidiosis, and his T-cell count dropped significantly. Normal healthy individuals have a T-cell count between 500 and 1500, and a count below 200 in HIV+ individuals increases the risk of fatal infection. In mid-1998, Munoz’s T-cell count was 3; if he had deferred treatment just a bit longer, he most likely would have perished.

Fortunately for Munoz, his crisis coincided with the advance of antiretroviral medicines called protease inhibitors, and he finally relented to his doctor’s urging to try the new medications. His T-cell count began to rise, and the infection eventually was entirely cleared. The brush with death taught Munoz an important lesson: from that moment on, he reports, “I never doubted my doctor’s advice again” on the importance of a regular medication regimen.

He also never relented on his determination to push the limits of his athletic performance – and shortly after the deathly scare, Munoz turned his attention to ultramarathons. In November 1998 he completed his first 50-mile event, and for the past decade he has competed in some of the most famous ultramarathons in the world, including the Comrades 56-miler in South Africa, and the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Nowadays, however, he does so with the blessing of his medical team.

Comrades Marathon, 1999; first of three Comrades finishes

“My current doctor is a marathoner,” Munoz says. “Hearing me describe the six 100-milers I’ve completed over the past two years has gotten him thinking about trying an ultra himself; he’ll likely start by doing a 50K. He’s voiced no objection whatsoever to the ultra distances I’ve raced.” His physician monitors Munoz’s bloodwork closely and tests his T-cell count four times annually; last year, Munoz’s number was a robust 904, the highest count he’s ever recorded.

He has also enjoyed a string of good health enviable by anyone, regardless of their HIV status. “My health is really good these days, and it’s kept stable for at least the past 10 years,” he reports. “The last time I had a cold or flu was nearly two years ago. I can recall numerous times over the past few months when I’ve felt the rumblings of a cold coming on and then seen those rumblings disappear after I’ve gone out for a run.”

To date, Ric Munoz has completed 155 road marathons and 26 ultras, including six 100-mile finishes. He’s still a member of the Nike family, receiving free shoes and apparel, and he occasionally gets invited to the Nike campus to speak with employees or share his story for other promotional purposes. Sometimes he gets recognized at races, but he says, “So many years have passed since the commercial first aired, that makes it a less frequent occurrence.” As each race and each year go by, he becomes more like another face in the crowd – a notion that he wouldn’t have believed in his wildest dreams more than 20 years ago.

More importantly, his journey has instilled the same blessings of peace and insight that many cancer survivors experience: the knowledge that every day is precious, and that life needs to be savored and enjoyed, because we never know when we’ll cross our final finish line. “I never lose sight of the fact that today could easily be my last day on Earth,” Munoz says. He’s “grateful to be around to see another World AIDS Day”, and takes life one fragile day at a time.

Munoz considers his identity as a runner and that of an HIV carrier to be one and the same. He states that, “My resiliency has endured over the years; I owe a huge chunk of that resiliency to the inner strength and physical strength I’ve developed through long distance running - the 100-mile events in particular.” He is just as disciplined about his medical regimen – regular checkups, blood testing, two drugs taken every day of his life – as he is about his training, where he continues to log 70-80 miles per week. He has a list of ambitious running goals, and one very ambitious health goal: “I hope to be around to see the eradication of AIDS, as difficult as that may seem today.”

That last notion might not be as far-fetched as it initially sounds. Given how utterly bleak things looked 30 years ago, and realizing how far medicine has progressed since then, it’s not hard to imagine that another 30 years from now we might be talking about AIDS in the past tense, just as we do with polio today. And as a robust 53-year-old with a healthy lifestyle and a potent treatment regimen on his side, there’s no reason to think that Munoz won’t be there to enjoy it.



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Magic, Hope, and Inspiration

Given our societal fascination with commemorating even the most mundane pop cultural milestones, I was surprised when a fairly significant anniversary passed with relatively little fanfare earlier this month - especially when you consider that pretty much nobody thought we’d ever see it.

This past November 7th marked 20 years to the day that Earvin “Magic" Johnson announced his retirement from professional basketball. It was a day that many sports fans – especially those, like me, who lived in Los Angeles – remember in the same way we do the Challenger explosion or even September 11th. Yes, that seems like hyperbole – but for perhaps tens of thousands of people, it was one of the most horrible things we could imagine, happening to one of our favorite people in the world.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson; photo from SI.com

I’ve referenced several times before that I was your typical jock kid growing up. I was a Southern California dreamer who bled Dodger blue and Laker purple (as well as Ram navy and gold, but that’s a separate tale of heartbreak), and for more than a few years, my life’s ultimate ambition was to play professional basketball for my hometown Lakers. Eventually my own hoop dreams died out, but my favorite team always owned a piece of my heart – and when I was a college-aged sports junkie watching the Showtime Lakers and playing pickup hoops at every possible opportunity, Magic Johnson was definitely the coolest guy on the entire planet. (And this is without even mentioning the fact that the Red Hot Chili Peppers wrote a badass song about him.)

So as corny as it sounds, Magic was the first person I really "cared" about who got HIV. I never met him personally, and didn’t know anything about him besides what I saw on TV and in magazines … but I distinctly remember being absolutely heartbroken when I watched him on November 7, 1991.

November 7, 1991; screengrab from this video

We knew so little about AIDS back then, and the small amount of information we did understand was simply terrifying. The fatality rate was seemingly 100%, and it usually happened in agonizing fashion. Death was going to be inevitable and merciless, and one of the biggest heroes of my youth would be reduced to a wasted shell of his former self before finally succumbing. Watching his press conference, I thought to myself, Oh God, he's going to die now. I don’t want to watch him die.

Of course, Magic Johnson didn’t die – not that year, or the next, or the one after that, or any of the twenty years since making his announcement that stunned the sports world. He’s gone on to have a long, healthy, enormously successful life by any measure - just as he told us he would in 1991, when virtually nobody in the room or watching on TV believed him.  Rather than becoming a high-profile victim of AIDS, he became a symbol of hope that the disease didn't have to be an automatic death sentence.

In the meantime, I’ve grown twenty years older as well; I no longer bleed for the Lakers or get emotionally attached to athletic heroes, and I realize that life throws us all manner of awful hardships, usually for reasons that don’t make any sense whatsoever. And the Magic Johnson announcement doesn’t have nearly the same significance to me anymore, and probably wouldn’t even be worth mentioning here ... except that it also played a decisive role in the life of somebody else who I’ve come to see as a true inspiration. Somebody who I wouldn’t know if not for my running (and blogging) exploits, and somebody who I’m enormously proud to call a fellow runner.

It’s somebody whose story I’ll tell in my next couple of posts, to coincide with another significant cultural anniversary later this week. Hopefully you’ll be inspired as well – but if not, it’s certainly the fault of the teller, not of the subject.




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