Chris Vaccaro, the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame’s president, announced this week that Howard and Kenny Wood, who led East Hampton High School basketball teams to state championships — in 1977 in Howard’s case, in 1989 in Kenny’s — after which they starred in college and played professionally in Spain’s premier league, are among those who will be inducted into the Hall on May 29 in St. James.
It’s the first time since 1996, when Ed Petrie Sr. and Paul Annacone were inducted, that East Hamptoners will be so honored at the same ceremony. Ross Gload, formerly the best pinch-hitter in Major League Baseball, was inducted in 2023. Other East Enders in Suffolk’s Hall are Dennis Oehler and Carl Yastrzemski.
“We’re excited to honor Kenny and Howard, whose basketball careers are now legendary,” Vaccaro said in an email, adding that “they’ve been fixtures on the East End since their playing days. Now they will be immortalized as Suffolk County legends.”
Sean Farrell, a Westhamptoner who went on to play at the guard position for several National Football League teams, is also in the 2025 Class. Vaccaro said he would release the names of the other inductees in a week or two.
Neither Howard nor Kenny Wood could immediately be reached for comment, but Michael Sarlo, who, along with Bill McKee, Bill Barbour, and Scott Rubenstein nominated the Wood brothers, said in an email, after hearing the news, “Howard and Kenny are the epitome of class and high-caliber athletes. Their athletic careers are undoubtedly among the best in the history of Suffolk County, particularly when you take into account what they were able to accomplish in college and beyond. Above all else, they were always even better teammates and human beings.”
The Wood brothers also were fellow inductees in the East Hampton High School Hall of Fame’s inaugural class, in 2012.
The boys basketball team’s record in Howard Wood’s junior and senior years was 42-2. “He still holds the record of pulling down 30 rebounds in one game,” his plaque here says. “In 1986, he was voted by the coaches as one of the top 25 Long Island high school players of all time.”
Kenny Wood’s 2,613 career points set a state public high school record. He was Suffolk’s player of the year in 1989, and his 31 points-per-game average in his junior year remains a Bonac record, according to his plaque.
Both Woods furthered their reputations in college, Howard at the University of Tennessee, and Kenny at the University of Richmond. They are in their alma maters’ Halls of Fame.
Howard Wood, known in his collegiate days as “the Dancing Bear,” was named as an S.E.C. Legend in 2018. He was a key part of the Volunteers team that made the school’s first N.C.A.A. Sweet Sixteen appearance in 1981. Though Tennessee lost that game to the University of Virginia, by a score of 62-48, Wood, who was to play a season for the Utah Jazz before embarking on decade-long pro career in Spain, limited the 7-foot-4-inch Ralph Sampson to 8 points.
Kenny Wood and his low-seeded Richmond teammates scored a huge early-round upset of Syracuse — a hitherto unheard-of thing — in an N.C.A.A. tournament during his career there. Scott Rubenstein remembers watching that game on his parents’ television with the late Ed Petrie Sr. (who coached both Woods), Bill McKee, and Tom Bubka. “Without Kenny they wouldn’t have won,” he said during a conversation on Sunday at the East Hampton Indoor Tennis Club, which he manages.
“Kenny was our team’s ball boy,” said Rubenstein, who was the elder Wood’s co-captain in 1977. “I’m very happy for them,” he added. “Two guys from a small town who set the tone for everybody coming up the ranks.”
In a letter that he sent to Vaccaro on Howard Wood’s behalf in June, Rubenstein said in part that “his devotion to our youth, both in and out of school, and on and off the court, has set the bar extremely high for those who follow in his footsteps.”
