He’s King of the Hill at This Tournament : Racquetball: Titan graduate Hawkes, 12-time singles champion at Outdoor Nationals, is a former pro on indoor circuit who always returns here to test competition.

Brian Hawkes played the indoor pro racquetball circuit off and on for five years. But he never was able to make the kind of living he wanted in the sport, and he gave it up in 1992 for the shirt-and-tie world of being a loan officer for a mortgage company.

The money he hoped to make simply wasn’t there. During his time on the tour, he won one tournament, worth $5,000. He was second in another and collected $3,500. He did well in numerous others, but he didn’t see the kind of financial future he wanted, even though he was ranked as high as No. 7 at one point. During that time, he also worked as a club pro at a racquetball facility in Fountain Valley.

“I enjoy what I’m doing now, but if I could make a good living wearing shorts and a tank top, I’d still be doing it,” said Hawkes, who will be 31 in August.

Hawkes attended Cal State Fullerton between the times he spent playing the pro tour and teaching the game, and graduated with a degree in mathematics.

The one return he makes to top-level tournament racquetball now is at the Outdoor Nationals each year. The event normally is in Southern California, which makes it easy for Hawkes to show up and collect the first-place trophy in singles and be on his merry way. This year’s tournament will be held Saturday and Sunday at the outdoor courts at Golden West College, and Hawkes again is favored.

More than anything else, Hawkes keeps coming back for the outdoor nationals just to see if someone will emerge to give him a decent game. That hasn’t happened often in recent years, particularly since the touring pros of the indoor game haven’t been entering.

“Some of the indoor pros used to come, but they started getting beat by the outdoor players, and they stopped showing up,” Hawkes said. Most of the top outdoor players are from either Southern California or Florida. The other parts of the nation concentrate on the indoor version of the sport.

“It’s not as big a tournament now as it once was,” he said. “I think it’s because there aren’t as many juniors coming into the game now.”

Hawkes has won in singles 12 of the last 14 years, and he and his partner, Craig Lane, have won in doubles in the last three tournaments. He won the singles title the first time when he was only 17 and a senior at Marina High. He won the championship the next three years. He was upset in the quarterfinals the following year, but then came back to win the next four years in a row. He didn’t play the next year because of another commitment, then came back to win four more consecutive championships.

Hawkes believes his level of play probably has gone downhill slightly in the last couple years because he hasn’t been playing regularly. But he doubts that it’s off enough for anyone to beat him this year.

“Now, I play only once every few months unless I’m getting ready for a tournament like this one,” he said. “I practice hard for a month for this, but even after one day of practice now my shoulder bothers me. But I continue to do other sports, too. I enjoy cycling, weightlifting, golf. I do a little of everything.”

The big difference between the outdoor and indoor court is that the outdoor court has only half-walls on the side and no back wall or ceiling. The outdoor court also is slightly bigger. Hawkes believes the outdoor game is more physically demanding.

His doubles partner says that’s one reason Hawkes excels outdoors.

“Brian is usually the best conditioned player out there,” Lane said. “He also is very quick. And he has a really strong forehand, and because of his quickness, he can run around his backhand. That makes him stronger outdoors.”

In addition to his racquetball skills, Hawkes is known for his unusual eating habits. At one point, when he was in his 20s, he says he was consuming more than 6,000 calories a day, well above the normal levels. He said he was trying to strengthen himself and build more muscle. But his raging metabolism continues to keep the weight off.

“I’ve always eaten a lot without gaining much weight,” he said. “Then, when I was playing so much racquetball and training, I did it to keep from losing weight. I had to eat to keep my energy up.”

At that point, Hawkes was mainly into carbohydrates. Now he’s on a diet heavy on protein: fish, turkey, chicken, tuna and dairy products, but red meat only rarely.

While he never made big money playing racquetball professionally, Hawkes did have a surprise windfall when he landed a spot on a television commercial for Mennen Speed Stick.

“At first, they were looking for an actor who could play racquetball,” Hawkes said. “I guess they didn’t find one, and a couple of people mentioned my name. I ended up getting the commercial, and it’s turned out to be a good one.

“They started showing it in March of 1993, and it’s still running now and then. I’ll be sitting there watching TV and all of a sudden it will come on.”

Hawkes says he still is getting residuals from the commercial, and now has received about $30,000. “Actually, I worked for only two days and I’ve been getting paid for it for more than a year,” he said. “I’ve made more money from the commercial than I ever did in one year playing racquetball.”

Hawkes says he has no plans to totally retire from the game.

“I’ll keep playing outdoors as long as I can run around out there,” he said, smiling.