25 Years Ago in Bonac Sports: 01.17.19

January 6, 1994

With a half-minute remaining in Tuesday’s tense boys basketball game here with Center Moriches, East Hampton High School’s athletic director, Richard Cooney, wasn’t altogether sure he would be presenting the basketball he had under his arm to East Hampton’s longtime coach, Ed Petrie.

The basketball was to be given to Petrie on the occasion of his 500th win, a singular feat in Long Island coaching, and rare in state history. But would the Bonackers hold on?

. . . Ross Gload made the first end of the last-second one-and-one to ice the big win at 73-69, and Cooney strode forward to announce Petrie’s milestone to the packed stands. In 33 years, the coach has amassed 500 wins vis-a-vis 183 losses.

“I’m glad it’s over,” the esteemed, self-effacing coach said in the locker room afterward. “I’m more happy, frankly, that we won this league game today.”

“I was there for his first win, and I made his 500th by one second,” said Tom Bubka, East Hampton’s junior varsity coach, who hurried over from the middle school after his team beat its Center Moriches counterparts. 

. . . Bubka was playing on Pierson High School’s junior varsity when Petrie began his coaching career at the Sag Harbor school in 1959. 

“Ed and I started at East Hampton in the same year, 1969,” said Cooney. “And he still has the same enthusiasm and drive and interest in the game as he did the first year I met him. He’s certainly given us over the seasons, over the years, a lot of enjoyment.”

Karen Kalbacher, a former East Hampton resident who left last summer on a 15,000-mile bicycle trip around the world, aimed at familiarizing young Americans with the cultures of other countries, sent a Christmas note to The Star from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 

. . . “When you’re so far from home and have been riding your bike nearly 80 miles in the hot and humid weather, it’s a great feeling to have someone you don’t know beep and give you the thumbs-up sign. It’s little things like that that keep me going!”

January 13, 1994

Four of the Bridgehampton School’s powerful Killer Bees, the boys basketball team, have been rendered academically ineligible so far this season — far more than usual, according to the coach, Carl Johnson. 

. . . A Bridgehampton student who fails to improve academic performance after being placed on probation becomes ineligible to play or practice with a team. As for what merits probation, “teachers have interpreted it differently,” John Edwards, Bridgehampton’s superintendent, said. “It’s supposed to mean students are at risk of failing a class. Some Bridgehampton teachers consider students at risk if one assignment is late, but others are more lenient.”

Ineligible players are encouraged to observe practices, “but it’s very hard for them to come and watch,” Johnson said. “They come once in a while, and then lose interest.”

The mother of one of the ineligible players, Joanne Mems, told the Bridgehampton School Board Monday night that ineligible students should be allowed to practice (a player can practice and play with one fail at East Hampton, and those with two fails can still practice).

“Not suiting up is punishment enough, I think,” Mems said. “In a community with not much to do, sports are important,” she added.