On Monday, the first day of fall sports practice at East Hampton High School, Todd Gulluscio’s pickup truck was stopped by security as he entered the parking lot. The guard politely asked if the driver knew where he was going. Mr. Gulluscio flashed a bright smile and pulled his new school identification from his dashboard.
“Yes, sir. I’m the new athletic director,” he said with an impressive level of enthusiasm for someone who got about four hours of sleep the night before. Mr. Gulluscio’s flight home from Florida, where he was dropping off his daughter at college, was delayed in Baltimore, and he barely made it back to Sag Harbor in time for the last ferry to Shelter Island. In fact, it sounds like anyone else would have missed the last ferry, but the crew made a special exception for a well-liked local.
“I’ll be there whether this last flight takes off or not,” he said from Baltimore Sunday night over text. “It’s either fly and catch the last boat home or I’m renting a car and driving to work.”
Mr. Gulluscio had big plans the next day to spend at least 15 minutes with every single sports team on their first day of practice, starting at 6 a.m. The week before, he spent a very early morning with the football team and its new head coach, Jaron Greenidge, Bonac’s former defensive coordinator. It was just a couple of new guys hanging out on their first day of school, talking with a few dozen athletes about “ships.”
“In no particular order they are — championship — we want to put championship-level effort into everything we do both inside the classroom and on and off the field. Next one is scholarship. We’re striving to be a school of distinction every single year, every single kid. Just try to make yourself a little better than you were the day before academically. Citizenship — we want to make sure our kids represent our school and our community in the right way everywhere they are. And sportsmanship, because that’s the one thing you can control regardless of the score, is how you treat other people.”
While Mr. Gulluscio’s four ships are new to East Hampton, they’re well known on the East End.
He spent the last 12 years running the athletic program on Shelter Island, after a combined five years in Sag Harbor and Greenport. He’s also an active member of the New York State Athletic Administrators Association, where he recently served as both vice president and president. And he’s on the board of directors of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. If there’s any question about where East Hampton is on the map, Mr. Gulluscio is poised to let the state and the nation know.
Kathy Masterson, the outgoing athletic director and Mr. Gulluscio’s good friend, has spent a lot of time with him in those associations. She’ll continue to work as a consultant for the district through the end of 2026 to help with the transition, leaving him with a program that’s running pretty smoothly, not to mention plans to construct a new $64 million indoor athletic facility and swimming pool that voters approved in May.
“She left this place in such a remarkable position. For me, it’s embracing the culture that’s here, getting to know everybody, and getting to know what their needs are,” he said. And it’s a lot of people to get to know. East Hampton’s official enrollment number for Section XI Athletics is 660. In Sag Harbor, it was just 40.
Still, he’s wasting no time making his mark by permitting seventh graders to try out for high school sports teams this fall. In July, the New York State Board of Regents decided to eliminate the extra physical fitness test and doctor’s physiological maturity test required for middle school athletes to play on high school teams. The timing was perfect to consider allowing East Hampton’s seventh graders to try out for junior varsity or varsity teams. On Tuesday night, the school board approved Mr. Gulluscio’s plan to let seventh graders play varsity sports, if they follow a very specific process that he developed.
“All recommendations for seventh and eighth graders to try out for the high school teams, J.V. or varsity, will come from the varsity head coach only. That coach would come to me by a deadline dependent on the season and make the request and presentation on behalf of the student-athlete they wish to see try out. We’ll either agree or not agree to move forward. If we agree, a meeting will be held in person with the child’s parent or parents. At that meeting, we’re going to go over what it takes to be part of a high school program — the social and emotional aspects, the physical demands, and the differences between the middle school and high school levels — to give them informed consent. After that they have to go through the same process that every other student-athlete at that level has to go through. They get the common tryout that everybody else gets,” he said. “At the end of the day this is for the exceptional elite athlete. That’s what this process is in place for, someone who really can compete and succeed at that level.”
When he’s not at his desk or on the field at East Hampton High School, Mr. Gulluscio lives on Shelter Island, where he grew up playing basketball and baseball and dabbling in golf. He visited Florida in the winters as a kid and attended Florida Southern College, so he’s a big fan of the state’s professional sports teams — the Miami Dolphins, the Orlando Magic, and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Mets are the only New York team he supports. In fact, he’s such a huge Mets fan that he has LGM [for Let’s Go Mets] on his vanity license plate. “Builds character!” he said, laughing about their losing season, adding that he may cheer on another New York team this fall after Jalen Brunson visited the district this summer and left quite an impression.
“I will root for the Knicks. And I did during the championship run. Who couldn’t root for them? But absolutely, after meeting him and what a first-class person he is, I’m definitely going to root for the Knicks and Jalen Brunson going into this year. What a work ethic he portrayed to our kids, during his off-season.”
It’s clear, after just a few days with him, that Mr. Gulluscio is a people person, so it was no surprise to hear what he hopes to achieve by the end of the school year.
“I want to have good relationships with folks. I want to get to know people on a deeper level than just getting to know them — what the kids need and what makes the experience amazing for them. Finding that out is important,” he said.