Sean Deveney

There still are stories that bring chuckles because, well, guys are guys and even if our brains are lifted from the gutter, we never really get them out of the locker room. So, there's the one about the rookie who brought his "girlfriend" to NBA All-Star weekend and introduced her to some veteran players — who already knew her well because she was an established league groupie.

And there's the one about the NBA player on the road who, when hotel personnel suggested that he check into his room under an alias, declared, "Alias? Any girl wants to come up to my room, send her up!"

There's also the old joke, which goes, "What's the hardest thing about going on the road? Trying not to smile when you kiss your wife goodbye."

That last line comes from the autobiography of Magic Johnson. Yeah. Kind of knocks the grin off your face, doesn't it?

It was 15 years ago this week that Johnson announced he was HIV-positive. Since then, he has become a bustling businessman and TV analyst while changing perceptions and raising awareness in the fight against HIV and AIDS. In most places, at least. One place where his lesson has gone generally unheeded: the very NBA locker rooms he once inhabited.

Give the league credit -- it has tried. At the annual rookie training seminar, the NBA gives incoming players a full breakdown of the pitfalls they'll face dealing with, um, adult situations, especially on the road. There's a skit. There are discussions with people who are HIV-positive. Sometimes the lesson gets through. Not every pro athlete is a skirt-chasing hound; many are good husbands and fathers.

Test yourself How much do you know about AIDS?

Still, the NBA remains a place where zippers have a difficult time remaining in place, where "free throw" takes on a whole new meaning after the game. "If they've learned so much from the Magic Johnson thing," says one NBA agent, "then why is there still a 'Ho Row' at every NBA arena?" Denizens of Ho Row, the agent jokes, "get better seats than the wives." At least I think he was joking.

Magic's announcement was a punch to the gut for players in 1991, but guts heal. "I remember I was driving back from practice in my truck on Route 77 in Charlotte," says former NBA guard Kendall Gill. "I heard it and I thought, 'This is going to change everything.' Then my mom called me and told me. She gave me a warning, too."

The NBA indoctrination, the warnings from Mom, the shock of hearing Johnson say, "Here I am saying it can happen to anybody, even me, Magic Johnson," all stuck with players at the time. It did not stop the hanky-panky, but Gill says, "Condoms, that changed. Everyone got more educated on those."

Slideshow   The Week in Sports Pictures The Giants on top of the football world, getting ready for the London Olympics and more. more photos

Fifteen years is an eternity, though, and as the ebb of retiring players meets the flow of newcomers, Magic's disease seems distant. Only four players in today's NBA were on rosters in 1991. Lakers center Andrew Bynum, the youngest player in the league, was 4. Can guys who were in Pampers at the time be inspired to wear Trojans now?

"It is disappointing," says Eddie Johnson, who was in his 10th season in 1991 and now is a Suns broadcaster. "But it seems to me we are back to the old ways. For those of us who were playing at the time, hearing Magic say he had HIV was something that made us all feel like we were not invincible. If it can happen to Magic, it can happen to anyone. But you can't explain that to someone who was not close to the situation. Life doesn't work like that."

No, life is mistakes, learning from mistakes, then forgetting those mistakes altogether. From time to time, a young player with versatile on-court skills enters the league and is described as the next Magic Johnson. Makes you wonder who the next off-court Magic Johnson will be.