25 Years Ago in Bonac Sports 01.10.13

January 7, 1988

    Kenny Wood, East Hampton’s 6-foot-4 1/2-inch junior center, who has averaged 31.3 points per game since the season began, and 35.0 in the past five games, during which he has been virtually unstoppable, tied the school’s single-game scoring record, set by Bill Myrick in 1968, as he tallied 40 points in Saturday’s game with Alexander Hamilton, which was played as part of a doubleheader at Manhasset High School. Even so, East Hampton wound up losing in the final seconds, 65-62.

January 14, 1988

    The Bridgehampton High School boys basketball team was, according to its coach, John Niles, “almost destroyed” Monday when Niles was notified that five players, three of them starters, had been declared academically ineligible.

    In the case of a course failure, the school’s policy provides a three-week probationary period at the end of which the failure or failures must be rectified. One-third of the upper-grade student body was said to be affected. The ineligibilities were announced on Dec. 23, just before the Christmas break.

    The probationary period “only included four school days,” said Coach Niles. “How can kids be expected to seek help from teachers, who may be away or otherwise occupied, during vacations? Last year, when Kenny Ross was the superintendent, and the same policy was in effect, vacation time didn’t count as part of the probationary period. Now it does.”

    The players now ineligible will have three more weeks (until Jan. 29), during which they cannot compete, to rectify the failing grades.

    Recently, Pierson High School had been the focus of controversy concerning its academic eligibility policy, which includes a weekly review and a one-week probationary period. Pierson’s coach, John Bertang, complained strenuously of the school’s policy in mid-December after being notified that four members of his squad — none of them starters — were academically ineligible. At the time, he suggested a revision in light of apparently more flexible eligibility policies at neighboring schools.

    Ed Petrie Sr., the East Hampton High School varsity boys basketball coach, retired from teaching as of Jan. 1, although he said he will continue to coach basketball here “on a year-to-year basis.”

January 21, 1988

    The Bridgehampton High School basketball team, as the result of a move that both surprised and greatly relieved its coach, John Niles, was reconstituted Friday as the five players who had been declared academically ineligible on Jan. 11 pending a review at the end of the month were reinstated by the district superintendent, Menzer Doud.

    “Just in time to go out and lose another one,” Niles said, wryly, in noting that the five players in question had not practiced for a week.

January 28, 1988

    The action at Friday’s basketball game between Bridgehampton and East Hampton in the Beehive, as Bridgehampton’s gym has come to be known, was nonstop, and all the more intense given the Bees’ tiny court and an animated standing-room-only crowd of 300. Admission was only granted ticketholders to keep within the fire safety limits. “Otherwise,” said Bridgehampton’s coach, John Niles, “we would have had 600 there.”