The Tribune-Review sports staff is conducting a daily countdown of the best players in Pittsburgh pro and college sports history to wear each jersey number.

No. 42: Connie Hawkins

When its most common association with professional basketball is from a movie, “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh,” it doesn’t speak great volumes about the city’s love for the game.

Before The Fish, we had a Hawk.

When Connie Hawkins starred for the Pittsburgh Rens of the ABL and the Pittsburgh Pipers of the ABA, winning MVP honors in both leagues and leading the Pipers to the championship, he did so wearing No. 42.

And he is the best to ever wear that number in Pittsburgh sports history, though Hawkins had some serious competition in Pitt All-American running back Marshall Goldberg, whose number is retired.

Part of the famed Dream Backfield under Jock Sutherland, Goldberg was a two-time All-American and Heisman Trophy finalist who set a school career rushing record for the Panthers with 1,957 yards and led the Panthers to back-to-back national championships in 1936-37.

No. 42 also was worn by Clyde Vaughn at Pitt, a 6-foot-4 small forward who ushered the Panthers into the Big East and scored 2,033 points and had 922 rebounds in his career.

Hawkins, however, was the first pro basketball superstar in a city known better for its college basketball. A 6-foot-6 wing with long arms and huge hands known for his flashy spin moves and one-handed rebounds, Hawkins would overcome scandal to star in the NBA.

This was where the former New York City playground legend resuscitated his career after he was ruled ineligible and expelled from Iowa when the 1961 point-shaving scandal implicated New York attorney Jack Molinas, who lent Hawkins $200 for moving expenses.

“It was totally devastating,” Hawkins told NBA.com in 2009. “I was innocent, but no one would listen to me. Plus, coming from a poor family, no one even thought about trying to get a lawyer to fight it. We just weren’t that sophisticated.’”

Banned from the NBA by commissioner J. Walter Kennedy, the 19-year-old Hawkins signed with the Rens of the ABL, founded by Harlem Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein.

Named for the city’s Renaissance but nicknamed the Rens, the team found a gem in Hawkins. He averaged 27.5 points and 13.3 rebounds in 1961-62, winning league MVP honors. But the league folded in ’63, and Hawkins spent four years touring with the Globetrotters.

Hawkins returned to Pittsburgh in ’67 with the ABA’s Pipers, and led the league in scoring by averaging 26.8 points a game and was the regular-season and playoffs MVP.

The Pipers’ success came on the heels of the Pirates finishing 81-81 and the Steelers going 4-9-1 in ’67 and coincided with the inaugural season of the expansion Penguins, who finished 27-34-13. Pittsburgh found a winner in the basketball team that shared Civic Arena.

Forget the Fish. Before Hawkins made a cameo in the movie as a member of the “Los Angeles Team” that played the Pisces in the 1979 cult classic starring Julius Erving, he was known for his spin moves and soaring dunks that defied the laws of gravity.

“Someone said if I didn’t break them, I was slow to obey them,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins led the Pipers to a dramatic seven-game series victory over Doug Moe and the New Orleans Buccaneers in the ABA finals. After winning Game 1, the Pipers lost the next two before Hawkins scored 47 points in an 106-105 overtime victory in Game 4 to tie the series.

But he tore the medial collateral ligament in his right knee and did not play in Game 5, a 111-108 loss. Hawkins returned for Game 6, scoring 41 points in a 118-112 victory to force a deciding game. He had 20 points, 16 rebounds and nine assists in a 122-113 victory (Moe was ejected), and the Pipers won the ABA title.

Their victory parade didn’t last long in Pittsburgh. The Pipers moved to Minneapolis, home of commissioner George Mikan, for the 1968-69 season before returning here the following year.

By then, Hawkins had settled a lawsuit with the NBA for $1.3 million and was awarded to the Phoenix Suns, who won a coin toss. Hawkins averaged 24.6 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists as a 27-year-old rookie, was an NBA All-Star from 1970-73 and had his No. 42 retired. Hawkins, who died in October 2017 at age 75, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.

His legacy carried on for decades in Pittsburgh, with the Connie Hawkins Summer League at Mellon Park.

Check out the entire ’Burgh’s Best to Wear It series here.

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