Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story

by David Wolf

Book Overview

This book is about a professional basketball player, Connie Hawkins, but it is also about American athletics. The hope and despair of the ghetto schoolyard, the cutthroat college recruiting, the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0030860210
• ISBN13: 9780030860218
• Release Date: January 1972
• Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.86 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Street Rags to NBA Riches by Way of Hard Luck and Pride

This book is the account of the life of basketball legend Connie Hawkins. You've likely never heard of him. He played in the bush leagues of the ABA, before joining the NBA with the Phoenix Suns in 1969. In breathless paragraphs, the book explains that he was an ESPN highlight reel. He was the Michael Jordan, and Dr. J, of the pre-television NBA. He played with the greats of the NBA: Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Billy Cunningham. His exploits were passed around by word of mouth. If he was in his high school years today, we'd be watching him on SportsCenter. But the story that resonates is the story of lost innocence. While in college, Connie was accused of helping bettors 'fix games' by shaving points. David Wolf, the author, was perfectly frank about Connie's intellectual abilities: Connie wasn't smart enough to know what shaving points meant. In the heat of questioning by the authorities, Connie confessed to things he didn't do. As a young black man of limited education, he was intimidated and scared. His "confessions" condemned him. Connie was expelled from college. The NBA shunned him and those other players involved with the betting scandal. The Hawk's only talent was for basketball. So he submerged himself into the minor leagues. He played for the Globetrotters. He played for the ABA, where he lead his team to a championship. But this was the basketball netherworld. Throughout these lean years, he saw the life he could have had if he was allowed into the big show. The pride he had in his game made him yearn to be in the NBA, where he could play his best against the best. David Wolf's description of how a group of lawyers befriended Connie, and rallied around his cause is thoroughly captivating and inspiring. People were drawn to his innocence, his demeanor, his innate goodness. This group pushed the NBA to a lawsuit. Connie was innocent, they contended, and the NBA was illegally blacklisting him. In 1969, the NBA settled, and allowed a grateful Hawk to join the league at the roughed up age of 27. He brought his dominating style to the NBA, but his prime years were behind him. Flashes of his brilliance could been in his NBA years, but the knowledgeable spectators were left wondering "What if?" Yet the book emphasizes Connie's own peace with what happened. You cheer for him. You applaud his attitude. And at the end of the book, you wish, probably for the hundredth time, that you could have seen him play.

On the short list of great sports books

David Wolf tells the story of the bittersweet life of basketball great Connie Hawkins to great effect in this fine book that is a biography and more.More because "Foul" recounts in detail the circumstances that led to Hawkins' longstanding ban from the NBA for his at best highly tenuous link to corruption in college sports. In telling the story, Wolf paints a damning picture of big-time sports, a picture that is, if anything, truer than ever today.Wolf sets up the story by giving us a glimpse into Hawkins' poverty-stricken childhood in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he led an unhappy existence that was relieved only when he discovered he had nearly unparalleled basketball skills. He quickly became a playground legend and developed the trademark swooping moves that many of us who got to see him play remember and that made his nickname so apt: Hawk.Unfortunately, Hawkins did not receive one important thing along the way: an education. One of the most highly recruited players of the time, he was ready to play the college game on the court, but woefully unprepared to play it in the classroom. He was chronically broke, painfully shy, and extremely naive, a combination which made him particularly vulnerable to the unscrupulous character whose actions ultimately led to his ban from the NBA."Foul" also tells a detailed and fascinating story of the fledgling American Basketball Association, which was where Hawkins was forced to play and also where he began cementing his legend in the basketball world. It's instructive to read about the low pay and inferior playing conditions Hawkins endured, all the time knowing, of course, that he could easily compete with the best the NBA had to offer.Finally, the book delivers a detailed account of the legal fight undertaken to remove the ban. This was achieved by his committed -- and of course poorly paid -- attorneys over the determined opposition of, among others, current NBA commissioner David Stern, who hardly expresses remorse in his interviews with the author.The final sadness of Hawkins' story, of course, is that while he had an above-average NBA career, his best years were taken from him, and most basketball fans were deprived of seeing him when he was one of the best players in the game.Connie Hawkins remains in my mind after reading this book, not only because of his compelling story, but because of his resilience and humanity. All in all, "Foul" is a sports classic because it fascinates on so many levels.

This Hawk soared

This excellent book may be the finest sports book ever written. Filled to the brim with compassion, it also shows the seedier side of sports and the manipulation of the athlete, particularly that of the black inner-city athlete. A must purchase for the serious basketball historian. I was turned on to this book by my oder brother, Marshall, maybe the best read person in the country, save William F. Buckley. I digress. I can still see Connie on the cover of the book with that watch that is about 6 inches wide, and his hands. Hands that made the ball look like a tennis ball.

A comprehensive look at the rise of a living hoops legend.

From his difficult childhood on the tough streets of Brooklyn, to his first taste of fame as a schoolboy basketball star, to playground legend status to the Hall of Fame, the life of Connie Hawkins is a unique study of the vagaries of sports fame and fortune. After establishing himself as a once-in-a-lifetime hoop talent at a young age, Hawkins found himself unfairly accused in a point-shaving scandal while at the University of Iowa. Tossed out of school, "the Hawk" entered the pro ranks with the fledgling American Basketball League, becoming its MVP at the age of 19, and later played four years with the Harlem Globetrotters. But it is his efforts to fight his unofficial "exclusion" from the NBA (a result of those unfounded gambling accusations), along with the stories of his exploits on the dog-eat-dog playground courts around New York City, that really give this book its life. Writer Dave Wolf delves deeply into the thoughts and motivations of not ! only Hawkins, but others who surround him on both sides - friends and antagonists. In the end, Hawkins' entry into the NBA is a bittersweet victory as he gains All-NBA status with the Suns as a 28-year-old rookie with bad knees. His NBA career was short, but Hawkins basketball life is what legends are made of. Wolf's book covers all with insight and compassion. This is a must for any fan of the game, or a fan of the underdog spirit.

NYC schoolyard legend who paid his dues

"The Hawk" found his niche too late in the NBA, but he gave his heart and soul to the game for the right to be a player. He was unjustly set up in a basketball sting that was looking to catch anything or anyone to show how hard the system (supposedly)worked to prevent corruption--but it took the best years from an innocent man's career. The manipulation of an athlete by college recruiters, especially for a promising black man, is just as timely now as FROM 30+ YEARS AGO! Connie and the others who were just tossed aside deserved a better legacy, and the "dream of playing in the NBA" still clouds the minds of young men who could learn something from the story of Hawk: get your education and make it worth your time and effort, 'cause you won't play forever. God bless you, Connie, for the fist-sized diamond in your chest, called "heart." Yours shines bright. Yo! You dig Michael? You dig Kobe? Listen up--even Dr. J. watched my man the Hawk, 'cause he SWOOPED! and they all learned their way from him. I spent $20 just to find this book; Connie paid too great a price for you to let it go by. This story is timely for every young African-American who dreams of the name "superstar," for a hero's valiant testimony.