Street Smart -- Hersey Hawkins Survives Violence Of Chicago Inner- City To Find Peace

CHICAGO - Just three miles from the opulent United Center, where million-dollar athletes entertain thousands of corporate suits, stands a weathered candy factory.

The Bunte Candy factory, a huge, three-story utilitarian structure, was retrofitted in the mid-1960s into a high school. It is now George Westinghouse Vocational High School, named for an engineer of local distinction.

Education is a daily challenge at Westinghouse, located in the city's southwest side, a vast run-down area on the front lines of crime and violence.

Sonic guard Hersey Hawkins, playing for the NBA championship at the United Center six blocks away, graduated from Westinghouse 12 years ago.

"He's actually from a rougher area west of here, Madison and Central - it's just wild," said Ray Shannon, Westinghouse's assistant principal for 27 years.

The school's most recent basketball star, all-Big Ten guard Kiwane Garis of Illinois, said he was so afraid of the neighborhood that he went directly home every day during his high-school years.

"In that area, they don't even give you respect as a basketball player. They'd still shoot blindly into a crowd," said Terry Armour, who has covered local sports for the Chicago Tribune.

Hawkins turned out as well as anyone could have.

"I kept him off the streets and alive," said Frank Lollino, his old coach who now teaches at Lane Tech. "I hated for weekends to come. Anything could happen on the weekend."

Hawkins came through the experience in an exceptional manner. He has a strong marriage to his high-school sweetheart, Jennifer, and with her has three young sons. He is an unabashed patriot, one of the few players who'll put his hand over his heart and mouth the national anthem.

What got him through it were his parents, Hersey and Laura Hawkins. He may have been poor but was rich in love and character.

"They've always been very supportive of me in what I wanted to do," Hawkins said. "My father was strict enough, he didn't let a lot of stuff go. We were disciplined when we stepped out of line. We were punished. When that happens, you're a little more afraid to step out of line."

Lollino said Hawkins' parents "deserve a lot of credit," as does Jennifer, whom Lollino introduced to Hawkins his senior year.

Hawkins added, "We're both Christian and we both understand that if you love in the Lord all things will come."

It didn't come so fast for Hawkins. He didn't even play his freshman year. He emerged his sophomore year as Westinghouse won the 1981-82 Frosh-Soph City Championship.

Hawkins didn't think much of his future midway through his time at Westinghouse.

"I was content I was going to finish high school, then go out and get a job, some blue-collar job," he said. "That was probably my goal. My motivation didn't come till my junior year."

During his time at Westinghouse, Lollino had turned out more than 90 Division I, II or III scholarship players, including Mark Aguirre and former Sonic Eddie Johnson. He believed in Hawkins' potential.

"His magic lamp was glowing," Lollino said. "I saw nothing but stardom for him."

Unfortunately, major-college recruiters didn't see the light. That was mainly because Lollino used Hawkins, with a 41-inch vertical leap, as his center. The recruiters couldn't project him as a guard.

"I thought I was hot stuff, player of the year, all-state," Hawkins said. "But I guess the recruiters didn't think so."

So Lollino, who was friends with then-Bradley Coach Dick Versace, held a private practice for him. Versace saw what Lollino saw.

When Hawkins left for Bradley, Lollino told him that by his senior year he would break all the school's scoring records. He did. By his senior year, he led the nation in scoring average at 36.3, 15th highest in NCAA history.

"You could watch the game and he'd have like 30 points, but I didn't see him get them. That's like his personality," Shannon said. "He was the leading scorer in the nation and you still didn't hear about him."

Shannon remembers the time Hawkins came back to Westinghouse when he was with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1989-90. He brought along teammate Johnny Dawkins.

"Everyone knew Johnny Dawkins, who didn't even go here. But no one knew Hersey," Shannon said.

"That's because," Hawkins joked, "Duke got more pub (publicity) than Bradley."

Jennifer Hawkins said she and her husband are generally still the same people they were back at Westinghouse.

`We haven't changed tremendously from the people we were," she said. `"ut the changes we have made were necessary in order to deal with the lifestyle, the money and watching out for people who may not have your best interests."

Hawkins still goes back, from time to time, to Westinghouse, bringing the teachers a lunch or talking to the kids about life.

They should listen.