MACON – A $1 million gift from Macon cardiologist Dr. Chuck Hawkins and his wife, Kathy, to benefit the Mercer basketball program is being recognized with the naming of the arena housed within a portion of the University Center.
Dr. Hawkins’ father, J.B. Hawkins, who died last year, was the longtime boys and girls basketball coach at Crawford County High School and was the fourth-winningest high school basketball coach in Georgia history according to Mercer officials.
Dr. Hawkins said he met Mercer President William D. Underwood about three years ago and immediately realized they had in common a passion for quality basketball and academic excellence. “When my dad coached the girls,” Hawkins jokingly said, “he had the three ‘Bs’ to abide by – books first, basketball second and boys third.”
On a serious note, Dr. Hawkins said he and his wife Kathy could not think of a better way to honor his dad’s legacy than to have the family name on a basketball arena at an institution where academics are so strongly emphasized. “I have been to almost every home game the last couple of years, and I have come to love the University, the coaching staff and the players,” he said.
In 32 years of coaching, J.B. Hawkins found time to lead both the boys’ and girls’ programs at Crawford County High School in Roberta, where he won 1,074 games. Coaching the girls for 28 years, the Lady Eagles’ record was 425-287 and the boys’ teams were 649-293. His son, Chuck, was among the starters on the 1969 Crawford County boys’ state championship team. Over the course of his career, Coach Hawkins took 19 Crawford County teams to the Georgia High School tournament. The Eagles also came in second place twice, in 1960 and 1963. His two most famous players were Kenny “Sky” Walker in 1982, who went on to star at the University of Kentucky and professionally with the New York Knicks, and John Matthews in 1960, who played at the University of Georgia.
