Bridgehampton's Carl Johnson Is Finally Enshrined Into the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame

Former Bridgehampton boys basketball head coach Carl Johnson was finally inducted into the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame this past weekend at the Cool Insuring Arena in Glens Falls, the same site where he and the Killer Bees won all of their state titles.

It was very much a “full circle” moment for him, and in more ways than one.

Just before his team’s second state title run as head coach in 1997, Johnson was put in touch with a local basketball coach up in Glens Falls; the state, as Johnson explained it, would basically hook up the incoming team with someone local who would not only share their gym for that team to practice in but also show them the area. It was then that Johnson met the coach’s son, Chris Contrall, who was 10 or 11 years old at the time, as Johnson recalled.

After striking up a conversation during a practice, Johnson came to find out that the young Contrall had an affinity for the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team, which Johnson also had a love for. The more and more the two talked, the more Johnson, and the entire Bridgehampton team for that matter, gravitated to this boy, to the point where Johnson invited him to sit on the bench during those state championship games in 1997.

At Sunday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony, who else was there but Chris Contrall, all grown up now of course, a family man himself with children of his own, and a basketball coach to boot at a local school in Glens Falls.

“Just seeing him there was great,” Johnson said.

That was the running theme of Sunday’s event — all of Johnson’s key family members and friends were in attendance, including his wife, Lillian Johnson, who very much spearheaded the movement to get her husband into the Hall of Fame, along with his former college coach, Luke Clarke, and longtime friend and Bridgehampton alum, Ron Gholson. Davin Johnson, Carl and Lillian’s son, was there and also recreated a photo with his father and Chris Contrall. Family and friends also made the trip to Glens Falls from out of state, and also current Bridgehampton head coach Ron White, who was a player under Johnson during one of their championships together.

“I had a teammate there from my first championship as a player, and a player there from one of my first championships as a coach in Ron, and that meant a lot,” Johnson said. “It was a great time.”

Johnson’s resume speaks for itself and it was no surprise that he was a unanimous choice to join some very familiar names in the basketball realm, including local coaches like East Hampton’s Ed Petrie and Westhampton Beach’s Rich Wrase, to former New York Knicks players and Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim. In his 26-year career coaching the Killer Bees, which ended after the 2016-2017 season, Johnson won four New York State Class D Championships, in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2015.

Johnson has the rare distinction of winning state championships as both a coach and player for the same team. Prior to guiding the Killer Bees from the sidelines, Johnson was their point guard, leading the program to state titles in 1978, 1979 and 1980 under then head coach Roger Golden. Bridgehampton has won a total of nine state championships, second only to Mount Vernon, which has 11. Johnson started as an assistant coach for former head coach John Niles, who came after Golden, and then took over as head coach when Niles retired in 1990.

Johnson was expected to be inducted in March 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed that back basically until this weekend. The Hall of Fame committee called the incoming class last year to see if anyone would like to be inducted via Zoom, and all but one person declined that offer and said they would rather wait to go in person, including Johnson.

“I waited two years, I can wait one more year,” Johnson said he told the committee, with a laugh. “Once you really thought about it, I just would have much rather be there in person. You want to be there live. The 13 or so of us got inducted and all of us but one made it. One guy did it separately last year, everybody else just came. Four people who are now retired from coaching and whatever they were doing professionally came up from Florida, that’s how much it meant to a lot of us.”

Johnson thanked his wife and everyone else who got him in the hall where he will be forever remembered as one of the greatest high school coaches, and players, to be involved in the game of basketball.

“Truly humble,” Johnson said. “I knew of at least three of the coaches who were going in. If I didn’t know them personally, I knew their reputation, and just to be up there with those guys it’s like, wow, I’m here. I’m pretty much in amazement more than anything.”