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 was born on July 17, 1942, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He was one of six children, whose father left the family when he was 10; supported by a mother who worked as a cook while suffering from glaucoma. He attended Boys High School, and played for coach Mickey Fisher. Hawkins soon became a fixture at Rucker Park, a legendary outdoor court where he battled against some of the best players in the world, such as Wilt Chamberlain.
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.
College and investigation into point-shaving
During Hawkins's freshman year at Iowa, he was a victim of the hysteria surrounding a point-shaving scandal that had started in New York City. Hawkins’s name surfaced in an interview conducted with an individual who was involved in the scandal. While some of the conspirators and characters involved were known to or knew Hawkins, none – including the New York attorney at the center of the scandal, Jack Molinas – had ever sought to involve Hawkins in the conspiracy. Hawkins had borrowed $200 ($2,200 in current dollar terms) from Molinas for school expenses, which his brother Fred repaid before the scandal broke in 1961. The scandal became known as the 1961 college basketball gambling scandal.
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.
As a result of the investigation, during which Hawkins maintained that he had no involvement in the scheme, and despite never being arrested or indicted, Hawkins was expelled from Iowa. He was effectively blackballed from the college ranks as no NCAA or NAIA school would offer him a scholarship. NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy let it be known that he would not approve any contract for Hawkins to play in the league. At the time, the NBA had a policy barring players who were even remotely involved with point-shaving scandals. As a result, when his class was eligible for the draft in 1964, no team selected him. He was formally banned from the league in 1966.
With the biggest professional basketball league having blackballed him, Hawkins signed an undrafted deal with the Pittsburgh Rens of the American Basketball League (ABL), an aspiring rival to the NBA. He played with them for only one season and one partial season before the league unceremoniously shut down on New Year's Eve in 1962. On January 15, 1962, to kick off the second half of the ABL's inaugural season, he scored a league-record 54 points in a 110-108 loss to the Cleveland Pipers. By the end of the season, he would be both named a member of the All-ABL First Team and become the league's Most Valuable Player (MVP), putting up averages of 27.5 points (the league's leader that season), 13.3 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game in 78 total games played for the Rens.
After finishing with a 41–40 overall record, which was good enough for a second place finish in the Eastern Division and to subsequently qualify for the only ABL Playoffs done in the second half of the season (the ABL used a first half playoff system and a second half playoff system during their only full season of play), Hawkins would put up a team-high 41 points and 17 rebounds alongside four assists in all 53 minutes of play in a 107–103 overtime loss to the San Francisco Saints, which turned out to be his only playoff game played in the ABL. His second season would have him dealing with some injury problems, but before that season prematurely ended, he would still average 27.9 points (second behind Bill Bridges that year), 12.8 rebounds, and 2.6 assists in only 16 games played for the Rens (out of 22 overall that were completed for a 12–10 record) that year.
Harlem Globetrotters (1963–1967)
After that league folded in the middle of the 1962–63 season, Hawkins spent four years performing with the Harlem Globetrotters. He learned how to control the basketball while barnstorming with the Globetrotters, influencing his later playing style
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.
Pittsburgh/Minnesota Pipers (1967–1969)
Hawkins joined the Pittsburgh Pipers in the inaugural 1967–68 season of the ABA, leading the team to a 54–24 regular season record and the 1968 ABA championship. Hawkins led the ABA in scoring that year and won both the ABA's regular season and playoff MVP awards. He was noted for his highly skillful passing ability (especially for a big man), leaping ability, and his awareness of what his teammates were doing on the court. The Pipers played against the New Orleans Buccaneers in the ABA finals that year, whose roster included point guard Larry Brown (who had played against Hawkins on Brooklyn's public courts) and backup forward Doug Moe, who would both go on to long coaching careers, and Brown to the Hall of Fame. Hawkins averaged 30.2 points per game and 11.2 rebounds in the series.
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.