On this day in Boston Celtics history, former Celtics center Cornelius “Connie” Leo Simmons was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1925.
Simmons did not play college ball, instead making the leap directly from New York City’s Flushing High School to the Celtics in Boston’s inaugural season of 1946-47. It would also be the very first season of the Basketball Association of America (BAA — a precursor league of the NBA), of which Boston was a founding member. Simmons would play parts of two seasons for the Celtics, having been traded midway through the 1947-48 season to the (now defunct) Baltimore Bullets.
The Newark native would average 9.4 points per game with Boston.