When Magic Johnson, the retired N.B.A. star, appeared in commercials for Converse sneakers in the 1980s, he and a rival, Larry Bird, engaged in trash talk. In a new commercial for Dove Men and Care, Mr. Johnson is talking trash again, but the tone is decidedly different. “My father had a trash-hauling service,” Mr. Johnson says in the spot, by Davie Brown Entertainment, part of Omnicom. “Kids would always tease you: ‘Aw, there goes the trashman.’ But my father was confident and never even blinked an eye, so it made me stand tall, because he stood tall.”

As family photographs appear onscreen, including one of Mr. Johnson as a teenager with his arm around his father, he says, “My name is Magic Johnson, and I’m definitely comfortable in my own skin.”

New York Times- Original Article
Dove Shows Athletes Off the Court
By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN
Published: March 6, 2011