Thomas Jerome Hawkins (December 22, 1936 – August 16, 2017) was an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player. A 6'5" (1.96 m)

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

, Hawkins starred at

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

's Parker (now Robeson) High School before playing at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

, where he became the school's first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

basketball star.100 Years Remembered in 100 Days: The Hawk
Notre Dame Official Athletic Site. December 20, 2004. Retrieved on January 2, 2009. He was then selected by the Minneapolis (later Los Angeles) Lakers in the first round of the 1959 NBA draft, and he would have a productive ten-year career in the league, playing for the Lakers as well as the

Cincinnati Royals The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Pacific Division. The Kings are the oldest ...

as he registered 6,672 career points and 4,607 career

rebounds 'Rebound' is a term used in sports to describe the ball (or puck or other object of play) becoming available for possession by either opponent after an attempt to put the ball or puck into the goal has been unsuccessful. Rebounds are generally ...

. Hawkins later worked in radio and television broadcasting in Los Angeles and served as vice president of communications for the

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

baseball team. Hawkins died in his home in

Malibu, California Malibu ( ; es, Malibú; Chumash: ) is a beach city in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles. It is known for its Mediterranean climate and its strip of the Malibu ...

on August 16, 2017.

References

External links

Career stats
a
www.basketball-reference.com
a
University of Notre Dame's Official Athletic Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawkins, Tom 1936 births 2017 deaths African-American basketball players All-American college men's basketball players American men's basketball players Basketball players from Chicago Cincinnati Royals players College basketball announcers in the United States Los Angeles Clippers announcers Los Angeles Lakers players Minneapolis Lakers draft picks Minneapolis Lakers players Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's basketball players Power forwards (basketball) Small forwards 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American people