The Connie Hawkins Summer Basketball League is back for its 34th consecutive year. This year, though, the league opened on a somber note.

Anthony Rivers, 26, also known as Greyhound, was a former Oliver High School and Penn State McKeesport basketball star who led his collegiate team to a conference title in 2006. The league held a tribute to Rivers, who was murdered after last season's championship game.

Several players wore T-shirts bearing his likeness and sweat bands and hats commemorating their fallen brother and friend.

"He was always happy and smiling," said Devon Knight, who played against Rivers in college. "He was very friendly and happy to be around."

In an incident unrelated to last year's final game, Rivers was shot in the head by a gunman who demanded his gold chain around midnight Aug. 5, according to witnesses.

Bill Neal, CEO of Champion Enterprises, the company that puts on the league, called the 40 spectators to half court before the first game. He spoke of last year's championship game when Rivers and former Pitt star Ronald Ramon went head to head and offered a prayer.

"I have been involved in community development for 35 years and worked with thousands of young people," Neal said. "He was at the top of the list in terms of quality and attitude. He was college grad, strong family man, father and son. One of those guys that you meet along the way that you don't forget."

Rivers was just one player in a long line of collegiate athletes to play in the summer league, which started on a small outdoor court behind the Homewood-Brushton YMCA in 1975. Connie Hawkins, an NBA Hall of Fame member, established the league along with Neal. Their league has been nationally recognized and was once named one of the top 10 best summer leagues by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is the fifth-longest running league in the country.

For many years, the league's games were played outside in various Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Last year, the league switched to indoor courts in Monroeville. Neal said that the switch was better for the players in many ways.

"It gives ballplayers what they really need," Neal said. "They have a good hardwood surface to play on instead of asphalt or concrete. We also have a controlled environment with no wind and weather. The ballplayers need these things but don't always want them because they like playing outside."

Hawkins was exiled to Pittsburgh when the NBA blacklisted him for his supposed involvement in a point-shaving scandal before he ever played a game at Iowa in 1961. He led the Pittsburgh Pipers to the first championship of the American Basketball Association in 1968. Pittsburgh lawyers S. David Litman and Roslyn Litman helped him clear his name. They sued the NBA and the league awarded him a $1.3 million contract with the Phoenix Suns. He had made about $23,000 a year with the Pipers.

The league used to welcome the area's premier Division I players from Pitt, Duquesne and Robert Morris. Now, though, it has competition from the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Pro-Am league, which was founded in 2006. Neal was not sure who would be playing in the Hawkins summer league due to other commitments, but former Pitt stars Ramon and John DeGroat played last year and Chevon Troutman has played as well.

The Hawkins league has proved it can survive without all the area's marquee players. In 2007, the NCAA did not give the league its certification due to a rules violation which kept all Division I players out. But players like Rivers ensure that the game will always go on.

"We always compared him to Allen Iverson," Neal said. "He was in perpetual motion with the basketball. What he lacked in size -- he was 5-10, 170 pounds at best -- he made up in conditioning and the ability to run.

"As the saying goes, small in size but mighty otherwise. He was a major loss to our league and everybody that knew him."