Chris R. Vaccaro became the President/Executive Director of the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame in September 2017.
Vaccaro, a lifelong Suffolk County resident, has an extensive career in sports, media, and digital business development.
A Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame induction committee member before taking over the organization, Vaccaro is involved in a number of initiatives related to sports, business, and history in Suffolk and across Long Island.
Vaccaro is the author of 10 books, five of which are about Long Island sports history. His journalistic work has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Athletic, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Associated Press, New York Daily News, and many more, and he has covered some of the world’s biggest sporting events from the Olympics, World Series and Super Bowl to the Belmont Stakes, Stanley Cup and MLB Draft, among many others.
Vaccaro, who studied journalism at Hofstra and public policy at Stony Brook for his graduate degree, is also a past president of the Press Club of Long Island, a founder of the Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame, oversees the Sachem Athletic Hall of Fame, is the founder of the Sachem Hall of Honor, and a committee member of the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.
He is also Vice President of the Italian American Baseball Foundation, the U.S. liaison for the Federation of Italian Baseball and Softball. In 2023, the U.S. Department of State named him a Fulbright Specialist.
The Emmy Award and Murrow Award winner was inducted into the Sachem Athletic Hall of Fame in 2021 and inducted into the Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame in 2022. Additionally, he was inducted into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame as a member of IABF in 2024.