There's still a touch of summer in the East Hampton air, which is a fitting backdrop to the summer-style, off-season sports workouts that will resume this coming week in the East Hampton School District.
Shortly after an announcement earlier this month that all school sports had been postponed to January 2021, the district decided to offer a series of optional workouts for student-athletes over the next several weeks, starting Tuesday.
"We're considering this the off-season," Joe Vasile-Cozzo, East Hampton's athletic director, said this week.
Participation by student athletes is not mandatory and coaches are volunteering their time, "just as the case would be in the summer," Vasile-Cozzo said.
Workouts will be outdoors only, including volleyball nets so that hitters and diggers can practice just as they would indoors. The school district will supply only limited types of sporting equipment, so students should be prepared to bring their own in many cases. There will be no locker room access. Coaches will have more specific information.
Vasile-Cozzo said athletes will follow the same cohorts that govern their day-to-day school attendance, meaning they can only attend practices either Monday and Tuesday or Thursday and Friday. Remote-only students are permitted to take part in sports workouts, but they will be prescreened and assigned a cohort as if they were regular attendees at school. There will be no workouts on Wednesdays.
Masks are required and standard Covid-19 precautions will be in place.
"We'll follow the guidelines, we'll do this right, and we can continue these activities," Vasile-Cozzo said. "I'm really excited. We need to get out there and get moving and playing again, but we have to do it the right way and look out for each other."