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Gary Vitti was the Los Angeles Lakers' athletic trainer when Magic Johnson revealed to the world that he was HIV positive. It was a time when the whole world was unfamiliar with the virus. And Vitti dealt with the backlash that came along with Johnson's admission.
As reported by Brandon ‘Scoop B' Robinson of Scoop B Radio, Vitti spoke at length about the time when Johnson announced that he was infected with the HIV virus. He named several players who didn't want to play with Johnson. But it wasn't just their opponents, some of the Lakers players, too, asked Vitti if it was “safe” to play with Johnson.
Article Continues Below“But what a lot of people didn’t know was his teammates were coming to me privately and saying: ‘hey look Karl Malone doesn’t want to play. How often does he have to play with him? I have to practice with the guy every day you sure this is ok?”
To protect Johnson's reputation and at the same time send a message to the public, Vitti opted not to wear gloves — a crude, if not ignorant protection mechanism against the virus.
“I thought about putting them on but then I looked at the faces on everybody on the team and I thought: ‘I can’t do that, I can’t put gloves on.’ I mean what kind of message am I sending to everybody, you know? So I refused to do it and Magic saw the same faces that I saw and he decided that he would retire again because he felt like: ‘they don’t want to play with me,’ you know what I mean? So why should I force myself on them?”
He hoped that the unwarranted discrimination that Johnson was getting would finally stop. But what they got was the opposite.
