Product Code Database
Cornelius Lance " Connie" Hawkins (July 17, 1942 – October 6, 2017) was an American professional basketball player. A New York City playground legend, " the Hawk" was to play basketball for the Iowa Hawkeyes but was unjustly implicated in a point-shaving scandal that saw him kicked out of school as a freshman and essentially blackballed from the NBA. Hawkins found refuge with the Pittsburgh Rens of the American Basketball League, where he won the 1961 league MVP before the league folded. He played four years for the famed exhibition team Harlem Globetrotters before getting to play in the American Basketball Association with the Pittsburgh Pipers in 1967. He won the first league MVP award by averaging 26.8 points and led the team to the ABA championship.
After a stellar second season, Hawkins was allowed to play in the NBA after a lawsuit filed on his behalf proved successful in stirring public opinion. Wracked with injuries, Hawkins would play seven seasons in the NBA for three different teams, most notably the Phoenix Suns before retiring in 1976 at the age of 34. In eleven seasons of professional basketball, Hawkins was an All-Star six times (four NBA, two ABA) while being named a First Team player in each of the three leagues he played in. Hawkins was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.
Hawkins did not play much until his junior year at Boys High. Hawkins was All-City first team as a junior as Boys went undefeated and won New York's Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) title in 1959. During his senior year he averaged 25.5 points per game, including one game in which he scored 60, and Boys again went undefeated and won the 1960 PSAL title. In 1960, he was named a Parade magazine high school All-American. Hawkins then signed a scholarship offer to play at the University of Iowa.
In 2003, the 1959 and 1960 Boys High basketball teams were inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.
Despite the fact that Hawkins could not have been involved in point-shaving (as a freshman, due to NCAA rules of the time, he was ineligible to participate in varsity-level athletics), he was kept from seeking legal counsel while being questioned by New York City detectives who were investigating the scandal.
During the time Hawkins was traveling with the Globetrotters, he filed a $6 million lawsuit against the NBA, claiming the league had unfairly banned him from participation and that there was no substantial evidence linking him to gambling activities. Hawkins's lawyers suggested that he participate in the new American Basketball Association (ABA) as a way to establish his talent level as adequate to participate in the NBA, as well as an immediate source of income. Before playing in the ABA, Hawkins also played semi-professionally in a local industrial league called the Young Men's and Women's Hebrew Association for a team called the Porky Chedwicks up until the summer of 1967. Also by this time, Hawkins was facing financial troubles from looking after his wife's brother, who was mentally challenged, as well as his own children. Pluto, Terry, Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association (Simon & Schuster, 1990), , p. 80
The Pipers moved to Minnesota for the 1968–69 season, but injuries and a knee surgery limited Hawkins to 47 games, though he still averaged 30.2 points per game, was named to the All-Star team, and was second in MVP voting. The Pipers made the playoffs despite injuries to their top four players, but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in seven games, where Hawkins averaged 24.9 points and 12.3 rebounds per game. Following the playoffs, the Pipers franchise moved back to Pittsburgh.
Hawkins' lawyer, Roslyn Litman, and her husband, fellow lawyer S. David Litman, who was the brother of the Rens owner, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA in 1966, arguing that the league and its owners blacklisted Hawkins. The NBA had refused to allow any team to hire Hawkins, who at the time the Litmans started working with him, was still playing for the Harlem Globetrotters.
In the light of several major media pieces, most notably a Life Magazine magazine article written by David Wolf, establishing the dubious nature of the evidence connecting Hawkins to gambling, the NBA concluded it was unlikely to successfully defend the lawsuit. Seeking to avoid a defeat in court which might jeopardize its ability to bar players who had actually participated in gambling, the NBA elected to settle after the 1968–69 season and admit Hawkins to the league.
The league paid Hawkins a cash settlement of nearly $1.3 million (approximately $ in ) in 1969, and assigned his rights to the expansion Phoenix Suns (who had won a league sponsored coin toss over the Seattle SuperSonics). Although the Pipers made a cursory effort to re-sign him, playing in the NBA had been a longtime ambition for Hawkins and he quickly signed with the Suns. After the 1970 season, the then Pittsburgh Condors unsuccessfully attempted to woo Hawkins back to Pittsburgh.
Hawkins was named First Team All-NBA that season. He was also a Western Conference starter in the All-Star game. He was tied for fifth in MVP voting that year.
He missed 11 games due to injury during the 1970–71 season, averaging 21 points per game. He matched those stats the next year, and was the top scorer on a per-game basis for the Suns in the 1971–72 season. That year, on January 21, 1972, he scored a season-high 40 points during a win over the New York Knicks. NYT: Hawkins Tallies 40 as Losers Never Lead The next year, he averaged a comparatively low 16 points per game for the Suns in the 1972–73 season.
Due to knee problems, Hawkins played in the NBA for only seven seasons. He was an All-Star from 1970 to 1973 and was named to the All-NBA First Team in the 1969–70 season. His No. 42 jersey was retired by the Suns.
Despite being unable to play in the NBA when he was in his prime, Hawkins' performances throughout the ABL, ABA and NBA helped get him inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. He was the first Sun inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Longtime ABA, NBA and college head coach Larry Brown, a contemporary of Hawkins from Brooklyn who witnessed Hawkins play, and played against him, during Hawkins' teen and ABA years, said of Hawkins, "'He was Hawkins himself called Baylor his model. Doug Moe said of Hawkins, "'He was the first guy on that Dr. J-Michael Jordan level.... Nobody could match him.'"
| Bold | Denotes career highs |
| † | Denotes seasons in which Hawkins' team won an ABA championship |
|- | style="text-align:left; | 1961–62 | style="text-align:left;"| Pittsburgh Rens | 78 || – ||42.9 || .509 || .167 || .790 || 13.3 || 2.3 || – || – || bgcolor="CFECEC"|27.5* |- | style="text-align:left; | 1962–63 | style="text-align:left;"| Pittsburgh Rens | 16 || – ||41.8 || .491 || – || .770 || 12.8 || 2.6 || – || – || 27.9 |- | style="text-align:left;left;background:#afe6fa;" | † | style="text-align:left;"| Pittsburgh (ABA) | 70 || – || bgcolor="CFECEC"| 44.9* || .519 || .222 || .764 || 13.5 || 4.6 || – || – || bgcolor="CFECEC"|26.8* |- | style="text-align:left" | | style="text-align:left;"| Minnesota (ABA) | 47 || – || 39.4 ||.511 || .136 || .767 || 11.4 || 3.9 || – || – || 30.2 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix | 81 || – || 40.9 || .490 || – || .779 || 10.4 || 4.8 || – || – || 24.6 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix | 71 || – || 37.5 || .434 || – || .816 || 9.1 || 4.5 || – || – || 20.9 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix | 76 || – || 36.8 || .459 || – || .807 || 8.3 || 3.9 || – || – || 21.0 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix | 75 || – || 36.9 || .479 || – || .797 || 8.5 || 4.1 || – || – || 16.1 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix | 8 || – || 27.9 || .486 || – || .667 || 7.2 || 5.2 || 1.4 || 1.0 || 11.3 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"| L.A. Lakers | 71 || – || 35.7 || .502 || – || .772 || 7.4 || 5.3 || 1.5 || 1.4 || 12.8 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"| L.A. Lakers | 43 || – || 23.9 || .429 || – || .687 || 4.6 || 2.8 || 1.2 || .5 || 8.0 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta | 74 || – || 25.8 || .447 || – || .712 || 6.0 || 2.9 || 1.1 || .6 || 8.2 |- class="sortbottom" | style="text-align:center;" colspan=2| Career | 710 || – || 37.0 || .484 || .162 || .780 || 9.4 || 3.9 || .3 || .2 || 19.9
In a skit for NBC's Saturday Night Live in 1975, Hawkins played against singer Paul Simon in a one-on-one game accompanied by Simon's song "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." The skit was presented as a schoolyard challenge between the two and had Simon winning, despite the disparity in height between the two men (Simon at 5 ft 3 in, Hawkins at 6 ft 8 in).
One of Hawkins' nephews is Jim McCoy Jr., who scored a school-record 2,374 career points for the UMass Minutemen basketball team from 1988 to 1992.
He was the grandfather of Shawn Hawkins, who played professional basketball internationally and was a two-time scoring champion in Taiwan's Super Basketball League (SBL).
Hawkins moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and worked in community relations for the Suns until his death from cancer on October 6, 2017, at the age of 75.
The Pittsburgh Pisces basketball team and the character Moses Guthrie, played by Julius Erving, in the movie The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh drew inspiration from Hawkins and the Pittsburgh Pipers of the ABA. Hawkins was in the movie.
|
|
