Cornelius Lance "Connie" Hawkins 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.