Serra opted to wait a week. Menlo-Atherton will wait 24 hours. Gunn must wait another seven days.

After spending months stuck indoors, football programs across the Peninsula are excited to progress into summer conditioning workouts under divergent schedules as multiple school districts adjust guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While there was some emphasis on exercising the body, the main purpose why we wanted to be here today was to exercise the soul,” said Serra coach Patrick Walsh, who held his first summer workout on Monday. “It was really great to see the smiles on the kids’ faces, just happy to be back at Serra where it’s a second home for many of these kids.”

Last Friday, the Sequoia Union High School District provided a green light for student-athletes to return for workouts under supervision of football coaches.

M-A coach Chris Saunders was hired barely two weeks before the stay-in-shelter ordinance came into effect.

“We haven’t really been beating the drum on schematics too much in this whole process,” said Saunders, who credits strength and conditioning coach Victor Brankovich for keeping the players in shape. “We’ve definitely done some of that with Zoom and whatnot, but more than anything else it’s been about how we’re adapting and how we’re figuring out workouts and training and routine and academics.”

Saunders drove into the district office Monday to learn safety procedures such as temperature checks and plans to hold his first conditioning workout on Wednesday, even though he’s allowed to start on Tuesday.

The plan is to delegate 12 players per coach without any equipment, forced to get creative while only 45-minute sessions allowed.

Gunn coach Jason Miller aims to employ similar methods.

“We’ll start off with cohorts of 12,” he said. “Extra emphasis is made on supplying hand sanitizer, hand-washing stations and sanitizing equipment.”

The Palo Alto Unified School District met on Monday and approved conditioning workouts on March 22.

The Titans already were forced to abandon plans to play in Hawai’i on Sept. 11 due to coronavirus concerns, with a second round of fundraising efforts for the trip canceled in late May.

Miller hopes for three dozen student-athletes in attendance for a rebuilding program.

“The easy part is designing your workout,” said Miller, who added his football field is being replaced. “The unknown is the largest concern here. … Just getting together and taking things slow is the first step for us.”

Last week Serra sent out surveys to over 100 boys engaged in the program. Ninety-six replied with interest in the conditioning workouts, which forced the coaching staff to delay a return to the field in order to work out logistics to meet San Mateo County guidelines.

“We see this as a step by step process and one that we want to get right,” Walsh said.

Serra is a private school and a member of the West Catholic Athletic League, thereby bound by state and county guidelines rather than to policies from the San Mateo Union High School District — which opened workouts on Jan. 8 at schools such as Aragon, Hillsdale and San Mateo.

WCAL rival Bellarmine also returned to the field Monday as a subcommittee continues to work on what the future will look like based on guidance provided by both the California Interscholastic Federation and the Central Coast Section.

“No school wanted to hold another school back,” WCAL commission Jolene Fugate said. “It’s all about getting kids back out and connected.”

The Padres assigned eights squads of 12 players and one coach as individual “SEAL Teams” enthused for a return to the gridiron after months spent indoors or on the backyard.

“I’ve been surprised with the level of conditioning, given the fact that we’ve had no physical oversight on the kids during that time,” Walsh said. “It varies, there’s a lot of kids that are struggling getting through warm-ups and — and that’s OK, too. At this point the only stress now is just making sure that our kids have positive outlooks on their futures and their soul is aligned in the right place.”