I took honors classes all through high school. Many of them required some reading or a paper or two to be written. When my classmates asked the teacher why, he said it was to weed out the students that didn't really want to do the work. He didn't want those students dragging their heels and holding the entire class up. If someone didn't want to do the work, they could drop down to the normal level. Oh, and by the way, I did all kinds of activities over the summer and still managed to find the few hours that homework typically took. If you don't want to put the effort in, don't take honors classes.
Once I found out this was "honors related" stuff, I changed my position.
The football team shows up before the school year as well.