Kathy Masterson, who took over from the retiring Joe Vas as the East Hampton School District’s athletic director on July 1, learned last Thursday that she has been named by her 60-plus fellow A.D.s as Suffolk County’s Athletic Director of the Year.
Masterson came to East Hampton following 16 years as the athletic director in Westhampton Beach, whose sports programs she built up across the board during her tenure there. She’s to be presented with the award on March 16 at the state athletic directors’ conference in Saratoga Springs. It was the first time she’d received the award, Masterson said, adding that she was “very honored.”
“The kids have been amazing,” she began, when asked how things have gone since her arrival here. “The faculty and staff have been great too. It all starts from the head,” she said, referring to the school district’s superintendent, Adam Fine. “He and the school board have been absolutely amazing. They’re always looking to do whatever they can to help the kids — the kids are what it’s all about.”
Certainly things have gone swimmingly sports-wise since Masterson took over the reins: Eight of East Hampton High’s 11 fall teams, including boys soccer, which won a league championship for the first time in eight years, and field hockey, which was a county finalist, made the postseason. Seven of those teams had winning records.
And, with boys basketball leading the way, and with solid showings by the boys swimming and wrestling teams, the winter season has gone well too.
Also during the winter, Masterson supported Ellen Cooper, Kathy McGeehan, and Sandra Vorpahl’s efforts to add more pre-1976 female athletes to the school’s Hall of Fame. At the moment, there are 15 male athlete inductees from the pre-Title IX years and only one female, Eleanor Dickinson, class of 1936, whose plaque says she would have averaged 45 or so points per game in girls basketball if baskets then had counted 2 points instead of 1.
When this writer mentioned the 6,000-square-foot Hub 44 building that Shelly Schaffer has devoted to improving youngsters’ batting, pitching, and fielding skills — it can also be used by lacrosse players — Masterson agreed that it would make her job easier. “It’s taken off,” she said, adding that Hub 44’s manager, Vinny Alversa, who coaches the high school’s varsity baseball team, was “awesome.”
Back to what she said about Fine and the school board wanting to do whatever they could to help the kids, a new sport, flag football for girls, is to be added to the high school’s offerings this spring. Masterson said about 30 girls turned out at an informational meeting at the high school on Friday.
“Ideally, while there are seven playing at a time, you’d want 20 or so on a flag football squad,” she said. “Suffolk had a pilot league last year, sponsored by the Jets and Giants. This spring there will be 23 teams in Suffolk County, and East Hampton will be one of them.”
Asked if flag football might take away from other sports, Masterson said, “There are about 1,000 kids in grades nine through 12 in this district . . . there are enough student-athletes to go around.”
Jonathan Augi, a high school science teacher, would coach flag football, and Erin Gillott, also a high school science teacher, would be his assistant, the A.D. said.
Two East Hampton High School graduates, Teresa Schirrippa and Crystal Winter, have gone far in flag football, which is to be an Olympic sport in 2028. Schirrippa played on the 2010 and 2014 United States women’s flag football teams that won silver medals in international competition, and on the 2016 team. Winter, who lives in Delray Beach, Fla., now, was a gold medalist in the 2021 world women’s flag football championships contested in Jerusalem, and played on the U.S. team in the World Games in July.
Masterson said she was hoping that Schirrippa and Winter would speak to the fledgling team come the spring.
She’s also hoping she’ll be able to extend her stay in Saratoga Springs so that she can see East Hampton’s boys basketball team play over the March 17-19 weekend in Glens Falls.