Connie Hawkins, American basketball player (died 2017)

Cornelius Lance "Connie" Hawkins 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 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.