The Big 30 Basketball Senior Classic committee has selected its three newest Hall of Famers, and all three come from the officiating ranks.
Bud Brennen, Bill Howard and Ken Woodruff will join the prestigious few who have been inducted to the Big 30 Basketball Hall of Fame since 2015, the first year of the Senior Classic. This year’s Hall of Fame class will be honored at halftime of the girls’ senior game, which starts at 2 p.m. Sunday at Portville Central School.
Here’s a biographical look at the three Big 30 honorees:
Bud Brennen
Brennan, St. Marys Area High School and Lock Haven State College (1972) graduate, played basketball and ran track in high school and continued with basketball in college. He was part of a school-record running one-mile relay team in high school and set a Lock Haven scoring record with a 40-point game in December 1972.
Brennan has worked three different sports as a PIAA official since 1973: basketball (since ‘73), volleyball (since 1986) and softball (since 2000). This 51-year resume included many district and inter-district playoff contests. He currently serves as president or chapter secretary for the three officials’ chapters he is a member of for different sports.
Since 2010, Brennan has also been a District 9 committee member, currently holding the position as Male Officials Representative for the district. From 1988-2020, he served as District 13 commissioner for the ASA of PA.
In 2009, Brennan retired from Morgan AM&T, where he worked as a customer service representative for 25 years. He was one of the original owners of Advantage Metal Powders in Ridgway, Pa.
Bud and his wife Patricia are the parents of five children and reside in Ridgway.
Bill Howard
Howard’s officiating career began in 1971, as a college student “trying to earn a few bucks.” He admits he struggled early on with no mentor programs for teaching young officials, but learned to like officiating and worked to improve. With no girls games to work and most games on Tuesday or Friday, opportunities were limited, as he didn’t work a varsity game until his fifth year. He later accepted a position as chapter rules interpreter and saw his career take off, working games as far as Mansfield, Wellsboro, Punxsutawney and many schools in between.
In 1983, responding to a newspaper article on the Allegany-Steuben Board of Girls and Women’s Officials seeking officials in those two counties, he started working in New York state, an easy drive to some schools from his home in Shinglehouse, Pa. Howard worked for 27 years as a high school girls basketball official.
He also worked with Houghton College athletic director Skip Lord to start an officials’ camp, which lasted for 16 years, teaching and mentoring officials and helping open doors with visits from college conference assignors and clinicians
In 1991, Howard worked the PIAA Class A boys basketball championship at Hershey Park Arena, site of Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA record 100-point game. He also worked the New York state girls tournament in 2005, countless conference championship games and the Region II Women’s Junior College National Championship games in 2003 and 2004.
Howard has had the support of his wife Mindy through a lengthy officiating career. This season he notified the PIAA that this would be his 53rd and final year as a basketball official as he plans to retire after “a great ride.”
Ken Woodruff
A Johnstown High School (1967) and Houghton College (1972) graduate, Woodruff started his career as a math teacher for grades 7-12, working from 1972 until his retirement in June 2005, with 34 years on the job. He chaired the math department and mostly taught algebra and geometry classes. He also worked as a math adjunct at Jamestown Community College, another 15 years of work teaching problem solving and college algebra and trig classes, earning the JCC President’s Award for Excellence (2018) and SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence. Woodruff worked two years at Archbishop Walsh as a math instructor.
He was also Town and Village of Portville Summer Recreation Director for eight years.
At Portville, he coached various sports, at least one every year in his teach including soccer, softball, baseball, wrestling and girls basketball: an assistant coach for the 1996 girls soccer state final team and 1992 girls basketball state final four team. He also started the modified girls basketball, soccer and softball teams at Portville.
He has worked 50 years as a basketball official (IAABO, New York State Girls Official, Cattaraugus County Basketball Officials), 47 as a baseball umpire (Cattaraugus County Umpires) and 19 years as a soccer official (Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Soccer Officials). At age 74, he is still active in working all three groups as an official/umpire.
He’s worked two boys basketball state championships, two girls state championships, four baseball state final fours and one in softball. He was also secretary-treasurer for the county umpires for 45 years and was an assignor for many years in each sport. Woodruff also worked local midget and pony league football for more than 30 years.
Woodruff worked five years as an Atlantic 10 Conference women’s basketball official and 12 years as a baseball and softball umpire for St. Bonaventure. He also has worked the head table at Bona men’s and women’s basketball games since 1992 to the present day.
Woodruff was previously inducted to the Portville Central School, Cattaraugus County and Allegany County Athletic Association’s athletics halls of fame.
Married for 52 years, Ken and his wife Sharon have lived in Portville since February 1972, with two daughters and seven grandchildren.
