A First for East Hampton Athletic Hall of Fame

Homecoming Weekend typically includes the annual induction of a brand new class into the East Hampton Athletic Hall of Fame, but for the first time in its 13-year existence, there was no class to be included this weekend.

Hall of Fame Chairman Rich Schneider and East Hampton Athletic Director Kathy Masterson each said as much on Monday. They both said simply that no one gained enough of a percentage of committee votes to be inducted. Masterson added that the committee didn’t want to “water down the process,” which more or less meant, bend the rules a bit just to have a class.

“We love for people to get nominated, and we know there are great candidates out there, but there was no induction this year,” she said. “The biggest thing is that sometimes the committee thinks that the process gets a bit watered down when you put people in just to put people in rather than if they really deserve it.”

“Each nomination is viewed by the committee and then we put forth a vote, which is all done on Google Forms and done anonymously so it doesn’t become a competition,” Masterson explained. “We then sit together as a committee and go over the results and see who did what and see how many votes were put in.”

Last year’s class included a pair of individuals in Cole Brauer and Ashley West Harvey, as well as the 1995 baseball team. The first class in 2012 included 12 athletes, two coaches, two teams and longtime sportswriter Jack Graves.

There is a 10-year moratorium on when former student-athletes, coaches, administrators or teams can be officially nominated for the Hall of Fame and be brought up for a vote by the committee. By next year, Masterson said, that time limit will expire for a few candidates, leading her to think that there will be a class then.

Nomination forms for both individuals and teams can be found online at easthamptonschools.org/athletics.