Magic Johnson Magic Johnson Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. (born August 14, 1959) is an American retired professional basketball player and current president of basketball operations of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played point guard for the Lakers for 13 seasons. After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA draft by the Lakers. He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after announcing that
Walter S. Johnson Walter S. Johnson Walter S. Johnson (1884–1978) was a notable businessman and philanthropist in San Francisco, California. He was one of the founders of the American Forest Products Corporation, a Fortune 500 company in the 1950s and 1960s, and of Friden, Inc., the Friden Calculating Machine Company, which developed and sold electro-mechanical numerators and office equipment, predecessors of today's computerized counterparts. As a philanthropist, Walter S. Johnson is most famous for his 1959 contribution to the preservation of the Palace of Fine Arts, an act that ensured the endurance of the iconic San Francisco landmark. Walter S. Johnson was born