Terry Wallace, Hicksville High School Class of 1966, played lacrosse at Hicksville on the early teams from 1964-1966. Bill Meyer was his coach.
After high school, he played lacrosse at Nassau Community College, where he scored 117 goals in two years. He still holds the Junior College scoring record of 9 goals in a game, which he accomplished in 1969. After his time at Nassau CC, he graduated from Adelphi after being a two-time All-American.
Terry served in the Marine Corps and received three Purple Hearts in Vietnam. He is extremely proud of not only his service to our country but also of many of his classmates who participated in the military during this controversial time. When he returned from Vietnam and decided to go back to school, Howard Finnegan, a reporter for the local paper, gave him $100 for books. The minimum wage at the time was $1.25 per hour. While Mr. Finnegan’s gift was not an earth-shattering amount, it represented to Terry that someone else besides himself believed in his future. Mr. Finnegan encouraged Terry to do the same in the future if he was able to financially. Terry has been awarding one scholarship every year to a HHS lacrosse player since the early 2000s.
In 1987, Terry started the first professional lacrosse league in the United States with six teams—Long Island, Boston, Syracuse, New Jersey, Baltimore, and Denver. While the league failed, the rule changes he instituted were adopted by the NCAA and changed the game.
In addition to his athletic abilities, Terry Wallace is a 19th century fine art dealer and the Director of the Gardiner Mill Cottage Gallery Museum in East Hampton. He has also authored several books on Long Island art . . . Caroline M. Bell and the Peconic Bay Impressionists, Helen M. Krueger and Otto J. Kurth, The Anchorage Studio and Peconic Bay Impressionism and Cappy, the Life and Art of C. Hjalmar Amundsen for which he was awarded Best Non-Fiction in the North-East United States in 2011.
