Baylis Greene’s chief point in a recent “Gristmill” column about Bridgehampton High’s Killer Bees boys basketball team was well taken, to wit, that the present edition has not yet begun to sting with quite the fervor that their mid-1980s forerunners did, but we should remember that those teams, the 1986 one in particular, were extraordinary by any measure.
The late John Niles, who coached Troy Bowe, Julian Johnson, Tim Jackson, Chris Parker, Ronnie Gholson, and Darryl Hemby, said of them that they were the best group of athletes who’d ever played for him. Neil Kerr, The Syracuse Post-Standard’s sports editor, who published a well-respected weekly newsletter with statewide rankings for years, said Bridgehampton’s 1986 team — which should be in the school’s Hall of Fame, by the way — was the best Class D team he’d ever seen.
“We’re confident every minute,” Johnson, who, listed at 6-1, could outleap far taller players, said after one of that season’s many lopsided victories, during which it wasn’t unusual at the end of a game to find five Killer Bees in double figures.
Bowe, the state’s small schools’ most valuable player in ’86, finished one game with 11 points, nine assists, nine rebounds, and eight steals, typical for him. Johnson once had 21 rebounds to go along with 18 points. The Bees stole the ball 25 times in their 96-69 felling of Alexander Hamilton in the state Class D southeast regional game, a game in which Bowe, Johnson, and Parker were in double figures by halftime. They definitely were out to make a statement, for Hamilton, in its Christmas tournament, had been the sole team that winter to best the Bees, who in that first encounter, it should be added, were without the services of two starters.
In Glens Falls, Bridgehampton smoked Salem 98-67 in the eastern regional final before ploughing Newfield under 94-57 to win the state Class D championship. And that hurtin’ was administered despite the fact that Johnson, because of foul trouble, was able to play for only eight of the 32 minutes.
In 1984, when Johnson, Jackson, and Parker were sophomores, and when Bowe, Gholson, and Hemby were freshmen, the only team to beat them — in the county small schools championship game — was Amityville, a far, far larger school that boasted a future N.B.A. draft pick, the 6-8 Shelton Jones, whom Johnson played toe-to-toe.
Soon after, the Bees played for a state championship, which they won in thrilling fashion. “Timmy Jackson, a 5-foot-11-inch sophomore, who had come off the bench, wrested the ball from a crowd, and, falling backward, offered up a desperation shot. . . .”
“Jackson hit the floor, and the ball banked in off the glass into the hoop as the final buzzer sounded. Bridgehampton 49, Greenwood 47. The Killer Bees had turned the potential sting of defeat into the sweet smell of success.”
“Teammates, cheerleaders, and the 100-plus fans who had made the trip up to Glens Falls rushed to Jackson like metal shavings to a magnet, and for about 10 minutes it was pure delirium. . . .”
Those were the days. May they come again.