Cornelius Lance "Connie" Hawkins (July 17, 1942 – October 6, 2017) was an American professional basketball player. Hawkins was a legendary high school basketball player in New York City at Boys High School in Brooklyn and at Rucker Park. As the result of unjust actions taken against him as a teenager, Hawkins never played college basketball and only entered the National Basketball Association (NBA) when he was 27-years old, after years of litigation against the NBA. He had a winding and varied professional playing career in three different leagues and with the Harlem Globetrotters, during which Hawkins excelled at every level; and he was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.
Nicknamed "the Hawk", his career initially suffered due to his false implication in a point-shaving scandal that saw him expelled from the Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball team as a freshman and blackballed by the NBA. Hawkins found refuge with the Pittsburgh Rens of the American Basketball League (ABL), where he was selected the 1961–62 league Most Valuable Player (MVP). The ABL folded in the middle of the following season, and Hawkins then played four years for the famed exhibition team the Harlem Globetrotters before getting to play in the American Basketball Association (ABA) with the Pittsburgh Pipers in 1967. He won the ABA's first MVP award by averaging 26.8 points per game and led the team to the ABA championship.
While still with the Globetrotters in 1966, an antitrust lawsuit was filed on Hawkins' behalf against the National Basketball Association (NBA) on the basis that all of its teams joined together in prohibiting him from playing professionally in the NBA. After a stellar second ABA season (1968–69) with the Minnesota Pipers (when he was named an All-Star for the second time and was second in the league's MVP voting), the lawsuit proved successful in both stirring public opinion in Hawkins' favor and in causing the NBA to fear it would lose the suit to its much wider disadvantage. Hawkins and the NBA reached a settlement agreement under which Hawkins was allowed to play in the NBA, and received a cash payment from the NBA.
Hawkins was 27-years old by the time he finally reached the NBA as a rookie with the Phoenix Suns in the 1969–70 season. He had knee surgery in the preceding season before joining the NBA, but averaged 24.6 points and 10.4 rebounds per game for the Suns, and led the Suns to their first NBA playoffs as a franchise, almost upsetting the Los Angeles Lakers (led by Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor) in the first round of the 1970 NBA playoffs. In his first NBA season, Hawkins was named first-team All-NBA, was selected as a starter in the 1970 NBA All-Star Game, and was fifth in the NBA's MVP voting.
Hawkins would play seven seasons in the NBA for the Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, and Atlanta Hawks before his career ended at the age of 34. He was named an NBA All-Star in his first four seasons with the Suns. In eleven seasons of professional basketball in the ABL, ABA, and NBA, Hawkins was an All-Star six times (four NBA, two ABA) while being named a first-team all-league player in each of the three leagues he played in.
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. He is often described as a “New York playground legend”, and became known as "the Hawk".
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. 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
Hawkins was recruited by 250 colleges, before accepting a scholarship to play at the University of Iowa. During Hawkins' freshman year at Iowa, he was a victim of the hysteria surrounding a point-shaving scandal that had started in New York City. Hawkins’ 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.
Hawkins could not have been involved in point-shaving himself since due to NCAA rules at the time, as a freshman he was ineligible to participate in varsity-level athletics. He was accused of introducing the gamblers to other players to fix games, which he denied. Hawkins, then a teenager, was kept from seeking legal counsel while being questioned in a Manhattan hotel over a period of two weeks by New York City detectives who were investigating the scandal. Hawkins later said that he told the police he had tried to help get some black players involved in a proposed summer league; not that he was bringing in college athletes to fix game. "'I kept telling them the truth over and over again but they wanted to hear other things . . . So I told them anything they wanted to hear just to get out of there'". This "confession" was later deemed worthless by some investigators because of its many contradictions. Later in 1961, in connection with the Pittsburgh Rens investigating Hawkins before signing him to a professional contract, it was reported that Hawkins had been cleared of any wrongdoing by the New York District Attorney's office.
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 effectively expelled from Iowa. After coming back to Iowa from New York, his coach told him it was best if Hawkins not return; and despite his protests of innocence to the school administrators and the NCAA, Iowa took away his scholarship. Hawkins was blackballed from the college ranks as no NCAA or NAIA school would offer him a scholarship.
After being expelled from Iowa, Hawkins came home to Brooklyn. He lived with his mother and five siblings in economically difficult circumstances. He tried to rebuild his life and began playing basketball again on New York City playground courts; but once the other players found out who he was they refused to play with him because of the scandal, and he had to play in more remote playgrounds in New Jersey and Long Island. Hawkins' mother was a religious person and kept him "fortified with her prayers" and hopeful outlook, when he was despairing.
Hawkins decided to come back to New York City to try and play in the Rucker Tournament; that included some NBA players as participants. Initially no one would get on the court with Hawkins until Wilt Chamberlain said he would play with Hawkins. Hawkins said years later "'That broke the stigma and everyone followed suit. Wilt was the most dominant player in the game and believed me. He told me if I was innocent it would be all right'". He also received support from other NBA players, such as Sam Jones and Willis Reed.
With college basketball and the NBA having blackballed him, the 19-year old Hawkins signed an undrafted deal with the Pittsburgh Rens of the American Basketball League (ABL), an aspiring rival to the NBA founded by Abe Saperstein. Under the usual ABL rules, Hawkins would not have been eligible to play until his college class was eligible; however, the league made an exception on the basis of economic hardship. The Rens were owned by Lenny Litman. After signing Hawkins, Litman said he had discussed Hawkins with the New York District Attorney's office, among others, before signing Hawkins. It was reported at the time that the District Attorney's office assured Litman that it had given Hawkins "a clean bill of health after being questioned in the basketball scandals". Hawkins played with the Rens for only one full season and one partial season before the league unceremoniously shut down on New Year's Eve in 1962.