Magic Johnson's grammar is never going to be in the same stratosphere as his accomplishments on and off the court.
After he finished cutting the ribbon Friday to open the Mall of America's new Best Buy, Johnson was slated to give an "inspirational speech" to an audience of kids in the rotunda. It was lacking on two counts.
While imploring the kids to "Make sure that you make the right decisions" and underscoring that remark with "You know what's right from wrong," the NBA legend never took ownership of his monumental mistake of contracting HIV. With this disease rampant in the black community, it seems only appropriate that Johnson's act include one measly mention of his poor decision-making.
On a much lighter note, there was the matter of Johnson's English.
While I would not expect this colorful, charismatic personality to sanitize his speaking style of unique pronunciations or slang, his grammar could be tighter, as the kids might say. The main reason: Few of those kids in the audience would probably get the business jobs that Johnson encouraged them to pursue speaking the language so loosely in job interviews. Johnson thinks of himself as a leader. How about demonstrating that you can be cool and grammatically correct?
His grammar is mystifying because the businessman -- he said he owns 119 Starbucks, 32 Burger Kings, fitness gyms and an unspecific number of TGIF restaurants -- repeatedly claimed that from junior high to Michigan State University, he always "took care of my grades."
I would love to see the English grades on those transcripts, considering these duds:
"You can't be late to the dinner table [when you have six sisters and three brothers] or what will happen?" Johnson asked his audience. "All the food gone. ... Now here's a kid from the ghetto, grew up in the neighborhood and he don't [sic] drink coffee and he owns Starbucks."
