The basketball careers of Howard and Kenny Wood, who are to be inducted into the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame tonight, will be celebrated Friday as well at a party at the Clubhouse in Wainscott from 5 to 7 p.m.
Scott Rubenstein, who co-captained the 1977 state-championship East Hampton High School basketball team with Howard Wood and oversees the Clubhouse, invited one and all to to celebrate the two inductees and said in a flier that there will be “complimentary small bites, friends, and great stories” at the gathering.
The brothers led their high school teams, both coached by Ed Petrie, to state titles, the elder Wood in 1977 and Kenny Wood in 1989. Each of them went on to star in college, Howard at the University of Tennessee and Kenny at the University of Richmond, before embarking on professional careers, primarily in Spain’s premier league.
Michael Sarlo, who, along with Rubenstein, Bill McKee, and Bill Barbour, nominated the Woods for the honor, said in January, when their inductions were announced, that “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.”
Howard Wood, known as “the Dancing Bear” when he played for the N.C.A.A. Sweet-16 Volunteers, and Kenny Wood, who led the Richmond Spiders to an early-round upset of Syracuse in an N.C.A.A. tourney, are members of their alma maters’ Halls of Fame. The elder Wood was named an S.E.C. Legend in 2018.