Photo courtesy of Dave’s Joint.
By David Cordova
The town of Woodmere, Long Island is a nice residential town with plenty of homes and a nice, quiet place to live. If you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, this hamlet is the place to be.
This place is also the home of the prestigious private institution known as Lawrence Woodmere Academy, which is a school that holds an enrollment of nearly 150 students from grades Pre-K through 12th grade or postgraduate, and has a student-teacher ratio of 6:1, where students are able to learn in small group settings.
When one shows up to the school, you can see that the school has the look of one of those preppy schools that are advertised on brochures, with acres of land around the school.
Something else to note is that the school also attracts students from New York City, from boroughs such as Brooklyn and Queens, as the Nassau County bus, most commonly referred to as NICE, has a stop just outside the school and takes students from Hempstead to Far Rockaway, Queens. There is also a Long Island Railroad train just a couple of blocks away which comes from Jamaica in Queens and also as far as Penn Station and Grand Central in Manhattan.
However, when you go through the back of the school, you can enter the gym and see plenty of banners on the walls from past years from championship runs and also banners commemorating alumni that played hoops for the school.
From as far back as the 1990’s, LWA, as the school is commonly referred to, has had such talented players such as Karim Shabazz (Providence), Tyrone Nash (Notre Dame) and Tyler St. Furcy (Marist), to name a few.
In the 1990’s and the 2000’s, the Tigers won a treasure trove of championships in the private school league and also won the New York State Federation championship in the lowest classification, the C division in 1999 and 2002 and lost in the A championship game in 2006 to Peekskill.
These days, the basketball program at the school is in the midst of a renaissance.
During the day, Hank Williams, Sr. wears many hats at LWA. He’s the headmaster of the school, the athletic director and also the head basketball coach of the boys White basketball team, one of three boys teams at the school.
For many years, he has been a staple in the Long Island basketball community. A 1985 graduate of Malverne High School, he has also coached at his alma mater, as well as other prominent schools such as St. Dominic and Freeport.
Since Jan. 2023, he has been the headmaster at the school, and has also had some promise with the White program as their head coach. During the 2021-22 season, the Tigers went 2-9 in a season that was ravaged by COVID-19. The following year, the squad went 10-6.
However, last season was an amazing year, as the Tigers went 21-5 and won the Private Schools Athletic Association championship. They also had wins against programs such as Portledge, Stony Brook, Upper Room Christian and the Knox School, all of whom are fixtures on Long Island.
This season, the program is 4-4 and have had wins against St. John the Baptist, Friends Academy and Uniondale.
Just like last season, this Tigers crew will have a gauntlet of a schedule, as they will be playing programs such as Bergen Catholic (Jan. 10th), St. Benedict’s (Jan. 12th, Shooting Stars Showcase), two games in the inaugural Hoophall Invitational in Springfield, Mass. during MLK Weekend (Jan. 18-19) and also the Gotham Hoops Invitational in The Bronx (Feb. 1-2).
The White squad has amazing personnel on their roster such as sophomore Hank Williams, Jr., the coach’s son, and also juniors Sylvanus Tabe and Joshua Smith. All three were major contributors to last year’s PSAA championship team.
Also on the squad are two talented eighth-graders that will be making noise nationally for years to come. The players in question are none other than Malachi Miller, a spectacular guard known for his penchant of scoring and distributing the ball to his teammates, and also Flory Kuminga, the younger brother of Golden State Warriors’ star, Jonathan Kuminga, who is making a name for himself on the middle school basketball scene. There is also another member of the Kuminga clan, in Alexandre Kuminga, a junior swingman that has plenty of strength and is even more talented than his frame implies.
All in all, Coach Williams is definitely getting his troops ready for what’s to come in the near future. On the LWA White team, it’s all about development, but also having a competitive spirit at the same time.
The post-grad team, which is in its first year of existence at the school, is one of eight teams in the New York metropolitan area competing in the Empire 8 League. Earlier this season, on Nov. 3rd, the first session of games tipped off in the Tigers’ home gym. Just like the White team, the post-grad squad gets to play all of their home games in this very gym.
However, they have been having a rough go-around, as they’re currently 2-10 on the season thus far. However, there are some gems that have made plenty of noise on this squad, such as forwards Caleb Andigue and Sam Marner and guards such as Sean Thomas, Adam Jefferies and Reggie Robinson.
Coached by John Pettaway, who is also a coach on the middle-school scene with the PSA Cardinals’ eighth-grade team, there is definitely some time for the squad to develop, as they have a few more games to go on their schedule, with matchups against Putnam Science Academy, Lower East Side Prep, the Knox School and also Winchendon Prep, the latter two of whom are also in the Empire 8 Prep League.
With the solid guard play and the post presence of their forwards, there’s no telling what this squad can achieve in terms of exposure.
One team that’s been fun to watch and putting the tri-state on notice is none other than LWA’s Blue team, or as many know it to be, the national team.
The story all starts with the man running the show. Known for his penchant of producing NBA players and Division I standouts, Dwayne “Tiny” Morton is truly a legend in his own right.
Since his high school days at Abraham Lincoln High School in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, he’s been known to win titles. As a high school sophomore in 1986, he was a part of a Railsplitters squad that won a PSAL championship and went all the way to the New York State Federation tournament in Glens Falls, where they fell to Binghamton, which had an All-American in current Monmouth University head coach, King Rice.
However, nine years later, in 1995, he was an assistant coach under Bobby Hartstein, his old head coach from his high school days, when the Railsplitters won a city title and the New York State Federation championship, which would be the first in school history. On that squad would be two Division I players in Jamel Thomas, who would be a dominant presence in the Big East while at Providence College and lastly, Stephon Marbury, who would go on to be a two-time NBA All-Star and would set the tone for future NBA players from Lincoln.
Not too long after, in 1996, Morton became the head coach of the Railsplitters, and by 2002, he would his first city championship. Including his first one, Morton would go on to lead the Railsplitters to nine PSAL city championships and four New York State Federation championships.
Some of his Lincoln alumni included NBA players such as Sebastian Telfair, Lance Stephenson and Isaiah Whitehead, all of whom would be All-Americans in their respective graduating classes and win New York State’s Mr. Basketball Award.
Aside from what he did on the high school scene with Lincoln, he was also influential on the AAU scene, as he started the Juice All-Stars in 2002, where his squad competed on the Adidas circuit and then later on the Under Armour circuit and sent plenty of players to college.
After that, he spent a year on the bench as an assistant at Seton Hall University during 2014-15 season under then head coach, Kevin Willard.
During the 2018-19 season, he also was the head coach for one season at Nazareth High School in Brooklyn, where he led the Kingsmen to the CHSAA “A” semifinals, where they would lose to Fordham Prep.
In 2024, Morton would be inducted into the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame.
Another remarkable thing about him is that he is also an educator at P.S. 288 in Coney Island, as he is a math teacher and is also the founder of a non-profit called Books Before Ball, which has been responsible for sending 120+ student-athletes to college on athletic scholarships.
It’s safe to say that on both ends, academic and athletic, he is more than qualified to lead the LWA Blue team.
Another coach on the Blue team that is making has great qualifications is none other than Kenny Satterfield, a former professional basketball player that is a native of the Castle Hill section of The Bronx that was a McDonald’s All-American selection out of Harlem’s Rice High School in 1999 and went on to play two years of collegiate basketball at the University of Cincinnati before being selected with the No. 53 overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks. He would go on to play two years in the NBA with the Denver Nuggets and the Philadelphia 76ers, before playing professionally for more than 10 seasons in various countries, including Japan, Greece, Mexico and France.
Since his retirement from playing the game, Satterfield has been giving back to the youth, as he has coached both boys and girls basketball on the AAU scene, as he once coached for the Brooklyn-based New Heights, and is also now the director of the Kips Bay AAU program based out of the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club in the Throggs Neck section of The Bronx, just a stone’s throw from where he grew up.
Just like Morton, Satterfield demands nothing but the best from his players and is always pushing them towards excellence on the court.
So far this season, the Tigers are 9-3 on the season and have played a tough schedule so far, as they played in events such as the Swoosh Classic in Canarsie, Brooklyn, the Clash of the Titans Classic in Baltimore, the Tarkanian Classic in Las Vegas and the Jordan Holiday Classic in Manhattan.
The personnel on the Blue squad are a bunch of talented student-athletes, some of whom have a chance at playing Division I basketball in the very near future.
In the backcourt, there are some solid guards in sophomores Anderson Diaz, Elijah Jenkins, Troy Fason, Jr and senior Kaleb Popotte. In the front court, they have a solid crew of bigs and wings in senior Julian Desir, juniors Dior Legore, Ibrahim Djane and sophomores Dylan Cudjoe and Caleb Ourigou.
Aside from the 12 games that they’ve played thus far, the Tigers will be playing in some big events coming up, which are the Iverson Classic Blackout Signature Series next week in Newark, New Jersey, where they will be playing against New Jersey’s own Immaculate Conception (Montclair) on Friday afternoon and then in the Metro Classic in Franklin, New Jersey on Feb. 7th, where they will be playing against Southern California Academy. And then on Feb. 15th, they’ll be playing against national prep powerhouse, Brewster Academy, who is also a part of the Nike Elite Youth Scholastic League.
They will also be playing more traditional high school teams moving forward, such as Roselle Catholic (Jan. 25th), Hudson Catholic (Jan. 28th), the two-time defending PSAL champions Eagle Academy II (Feb. 6th) and Camden (Feb. 14th).
With all of that talent assembled on the squad and the type of competition they have played and will continue to play this coming season, it shows that the Tigers Blue squad is battle-tested. Unlike the White and post-grad teams respectively, this squad doesn’t have the pleasure of playing in their home gym, but instead have to play all of their games in opposing venues, making them road warriors.
However, if they were to host a game in the gym that only seats as many as 150 to 200 spectators, it would definitely sell out. That’s just how good the LWA Blue team is.
If the 2024-25 season has shown us anything thus far, it’s that if there’s talent and good coaching, there will be plenty of success. Like the famous quote from the 1989 classic film, “Field of Dreams,” if you build it, people will come.
Hank Williams created a renaissance of LWA and now people are flocking to this small private institution out on Woodmere Boulevard in the nice streets of Woodmere, Long Island.
With all of the talent on the three varsity teams, there’s bound to be plenty of chances for these student-athletes to be seen by college coaches of all levels, and also a quality education. Next school year, there is also a plan on establishing middle school teams for both boys & girls.
For all prospective student-athletes wondering about LWA, before you go there, you’ve got to do what the school’s motto says. You’ve got to learn to serve.
Side note: For those looking to enroll their student at Lawrence Woodmere Academy for the 2025-26 school year, rolling admissions are now in session.
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