With $ 100 million in loans, Magic Johnson pays it forward
LOS ANGELES — Magic Johnson, janitor.
Before we talk about the $ 100 million in loans his insurance company is funding for minority- and women- owned businesses, we first need to talk about the 16- year- old kid cleaning toilets in a Michigan office building. The intellectually curious and ambitious teen would sneak into the executive offices, take a seat in a reclining chair and kick up his feet on the desk, pretending to give orders to an imaginary assistant.
“That’s when my dreams went from not only being in the NBA to also wanting to run my own business,” he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. “I’ve always said, ‘ If you don’t dream it, you can’t become it.’ That early experience working for black business owners showed me what was possible. It’s why I have my business.”
Far too often, the conversations around diversity and inclusion get oversimplified. Seeing someone who looks like you occupy a particular space always has meant more than checking an affirmative action box on an HR worksheet. It is about a shared experience, or perhaps a worldview being represented in the country’s kaleidoscope. It is about letting minorities know you don’t just sing America, you are America, and your contributions are necessary for her success.
“In my era, I didn’t see any blacks in business,” said Joel Ferguson, who along with fellow businessman Gregory Eaton employed and mentored Johnson before he was Magic. “It’s very important that there are role models, to have people who are where you want to be.
“But having role models isn’t enough. You also have to be a hard worker. ( Johnson) was really good at doing all of the things we asked of him. And he asked a lot of good, relevant questions about what it takes to be a successful businessman.”
Johnson credits his start of cleaning office buildings as the primary reason why, upon hearing minorityowned businesses were struggling to receive the necessary assistance during the coronavirus pandemic, he put together a plan to help.
“If they close down because of lack of funding, it would create a lot of jobless black and brown people, and it would eliminate access to the resources the community needs,” Johnson said. “We then would need to go outside of our community for our goods and services, and that not only puts a strain on people, it could hurt the property value.”
This is how the plan works: EquiTrust Life Insurance Co., which Johnson owns, will distribute the loans through the Small Business Administration’s federal Paycheck Protection Program in partnership with MBE Capital Partners, a New Jersey- based nonbank lender that works closely with minorityowned businesses. In general, if companies retain their workforces, PPP loans can function more like grants, backed by the SBA. Johnson’s funding will reportedly go toward some 5,000 loans that have already been approved. Recipients of the loans will gain access to capital that they’ve been unable to secure from major banks and credit unions.
At the onset of the shutdown, the Center for Responsible Lending projected that more than 90% of businesses owned by blacks, Latinos and Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders were unlikely to secure a PPP loan through a major bank or credit union. For Asian Americans, it was 75%.
These businesses have watched the SBA distribute hundreds of millions of dollars to companies with much better access to capital markets — and far less need. One of those businesses? The franchise with which Johnson is most closely identified, the Lakers. Last month, the team received a $ 4.6 million distribution before returning it amid public backlash.
We all are clamoring to return to normal, but if a community’s restaurants, salons, accountants and churches continue to be ignored in the direst of times, that’s not what normal should be.
It is, in fact, a reminder of how COVID- 19, which has already taken minority lives at a disproportionate level, has ravaged a community.
“We know those places where everybody is on a first- name basis, where your mom, dad, uncle or sister works there, and that makes us all feel good and is a source of pride,” said Johnson, who not only stays in touch with his earliest mentors but partners in business deals with them as well.
“The places that allow minority kids to dream. Just like for me back in Lansing, ( Ferguson and Eaton) owning businesses and giving me an opportunity is really why I’m blessed to be able to help people today. That’s how this thing works.”
CHICAGO — At the end of LeBron James’ first season in Miami, I was watching the Heat and Mavericks play Game 6 of the 2011 NBA Finals while eating dinner in a hotel bar at the Philadelphia airport.
I don’t remember much about the game, but I’ll never forget that the bar was filled with business travelers and vacationers rooting for the Mavericks. And when they pulled out a 105- 95 win to take the championship, the bar erupted in cheers and strangers high- fived each other.
None of us was a Mavericks fan. All of us wanted to see James denied his championship.
It’s funny how one illadvised decision can color everyone’s perceptions about your character. Unfortunately for James, many sports fans defined him by “The Decision,” the hourlong ESPN show in July 2010 during which he announced his plans to leave Cleveland and “take my talents to South Beach.”
James was labeled an egomaniac who wanted to form a superteam to win multiple titles and surpass Michael Jordan’s Bulls dynasty instead of doing it the old- fashioned way — by waiting for your team’s general manager to surround the superstar with enough talent through the draft, trades and free agency.
Forbes labeled James “America’s Most Disliked Athlete” in 2012, and the Heat became the Yankees of the NBA, the team you loved to hate. James wound up winning two titles in four years in Miami and another with the Cavaliers upon his return.
But he’ll probably never catch Jordan, even though Bulls management’s decision to end their reign after 1998, as depicted in the final scenes of “The Last Dance,” limited Jordan to six titles.
In an interview about “The Last Dance” on Uninterrupted’s YouTube channel, James agreed with Jordan’s assertion that the Bulls should’ve had the opportunity to win No. 7.
“It was like, damn, Mike made six, and the fashion that he won six, does he go for it again and see if anyone can knock him off that pedestal of being not only the greatest player in the world, but also the greatest team at that point in time?” James said. “You definitely would’ve loved to see him go for seven.
“When we were watching Michael in the ’ 98 Finals, we were like: ‘ He was nowhere near washed ... he’s nowhere near being on his last leg. This ( bleep) can still go. He’s still the best player in the world.’ And I’m watching that in ’ 98 at 14 years of age and going, ‘ Wow, Mike is still the best player in the world at 35 years old.’ ”
James is now 35 and inarguably the best player in the world. Inevitably, the ESPN documentary sparked the old debate over who is the greatest player of all time, and it left most viewers with the impression it’s an open- and- shut case.
If James felt slighted, it didn’t show during his interview. He toasted the documentary with a glass of wine, said he was “sad” to see it end and called Jordan his “inspiration” while growing up in Akron, Ohio. James told Uninterrupted he was distraught when Jordan first retired in 1993, saying watching MJ on WGN- 9 helped him get through some “dark days” during his childhood.
“People say you were only 9 years old, but there are a lot of dark days when you grow up the way I grew up and you’re part of a single- parent household,” he said. “Every other day, if I got an opportunity on WGN ( to) watch Mike, it gave me another boost of life. It made me feel like I can make it out of this situation.
“And when he decided to give it up after winning that third title versus Phoenix, I felt like: ‘ What can I do? I don’t know what to do. ... OK, without Mike, what do I do now? Who is going to be my inspiration?’ And that brought tears to my eyes.”
Over the last several years, James has won back some fans he turned off when making “The Decision” in 2010. And for kids with no preconceived notions about his image from that misstep, idolizing James is a no- brainer.
When my 8- year- old nephew asked me to take him to a Bulls- Cavaliers game in 2016 to “watch LeBron,” I told him only if he rooted for the Bulls. He declined, but I bought him a No. 23 Cavs jersey and took him anyway. He likes Mike, but LeBron is “the best.”
Thanks in part to the Bulls’ ineptitude, I probably watched more Lakers games than Bulls games this season before the shutdown in March. James is the NBA, and his penchant for speaking out on social issues has made me respect him even more. I’m glad he doesn’t “shut up and dribble,” as a Fox News personality advised James to do in 2018 when he voiced an opinion she didn’t share.
James thanked her for inadvertently helping him “create more awareness” about social injustice.
“We will definitely not shut up and dribble,” he said. “I mean too much to society, too much to the youth, too much to so many kids who feel like they don’t have a way out.”
Those words mean something, and James continues to speak out, recently tweeting about the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery.
Jordan may have sealed his title as the greatest of all time. No argument here.
But right now, James’ voice is the one that matters most.