Islands unto themselves
Storied rivalry cut short for Vineyard, Nantucket
The only thing on the football field behind Nantucket High School Saturday afternoon will be broken clam shells in the end zone and the seagulls that dropped them there. It was supposed to be different.
There was supposed to be blueand-white bunting and handmade signs and cheerleaders and two high school football teams that share the most unique rivalry in sports squaring off for the 70th time. Nantucket was supposed to host Martha’s Vineyard with a chance to win the Island Cup in back-to-back years and on its home field for the first time in nearly 15 years. That “it ain’t gonna happen” are four of the saddest words anyone from either Island could mutter, which a lot of people are doing today especially on Nantucket, where some folks believe the Vineyard’s late decision to forfeit had less to do with a dwindling number of players and more to do with the growing numbers put up by Nantucket’s 8-2 team. Mistrust, after all, is part of rivalry is it not?
Full disclosure here. I played and coached in that game a long time ago, before there was an Island Cup but when there was already a rivalry that bordered on the Hatfields and the McCoys displayed the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Why, you may wonder, isn’t the game played on Thanksgiving if it’s such a big rivalry? Good question with the kind of answer that has led the game to be written about in The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Wall Street Journal and New York Times and featured a few years back in an NBC segment that led to the score being announced during a Notre Dame game, for pete’s sake.
Every high school has a rival. Most often they meet on Thanksgiving morning, duking it out while the turkey is browning. Even high schools adrift on the vacant plains of Kansas have a rival somewhere. But only these two have to take a two-hour boat ride to reach the other.
There is no regular ferry service between the islands in November so the visiting team must hire a boat at a cost of $11,000 to transport its team and fans. Add to that the existence of the Island Cup, which began being contested in 1978, and the long years before that when, on one occasion with which I am familiar, several Vineyard players were unavailable for the game on Nantucket because they beat the beejezus out of some loudmouths from the Nantucket Coast Guard Station the night before. Put it all together and you get a game carrying some deep emotions.
Once players from one team would stay overnight with players from the other on the eve of the game, taking the boat back after it was over. Strong bonds were forged from that unusual circumstance, players first sharing a bedroom and a meal with a rival as freshmen and maintaining that relationship for years. That ended after those Coast Guard guys got a beating, but the rest of the rivalry remained intact, having been broken only in 2009, when it was Nantucket that couldn’t field a team.
For much of the past 25 years, the Vineyard dominated but it was not always so. Certainly not this year. The Vineyard lost players due to injury, suspensions and defections, winning only twice before athletic director Mark McCarthy, whose dad was coach of the Vineyard’s first undefeated team in 1963 and who played in and lost the first Island Cup game, was forced to accept the obvious.
“Fielding 14 players in a football game is not something we wanted to do,” McCarthy said. “If we got a couple of players hurt we would have had to forfeit in the middle of the game.
“It’s a game we all look forward to playing. I feel bad for our kids and Nantucket’s kids. No matter what kind of year you’re having, if you can beat the other island you saved your season, but we’d gone from 36 players to 14. The kids really wanted to play but could we safely finish the season?”
According to first-year Vineyard coach Ryan Kent, his team dressed 22 for its last game, a 14-0 win over Greater New Bedford Voke, but only 14 were prepared to play. “We had six or eight freshmen,” Kent said. “I know it’s a long- standing tradition. I know what it means. But you’ve got to ask yourself, where’s the line between tradition and risk? I’m sure they aren’t happy with the decision.”
Kent is right about that. Nantucket had this season assembled one of its finest teams, losing in the second round of the Eastern Mass playoffs to Abington. It scored 375 points and allowed only 85 and, after having lost the Cup 12 straight years, was looking forward to back-toback victories and finally beating the Vineyard on Nantucket.
To be denied that opportunity left Nantucket coach Brian Ryder wondering.
“I totally understand the reasoning,” Ryder said. “The only frustrating thing is they were able to play New Bedford Voke two weeks ago. When we looked at the video they had 24 dressed and eight senior starters. If a lot of them were freshmen that could have very easily been discussed. We could have made it happen and still been respectful of their situation.
“The sad thing for me is if we were a weak team (like struggling Voke), they wouldn’t have forfeited the game. We took our beatings against them many times. I know one year we only had 16 players and lost to them, 48-6.
“The biggest heartbreak for me was, when I told our kids there’d be no game, one of my seniors said, ‘We’re not going to have the Island Cup my senior year?’ . . . This was a chance for us to win the Cup at home for the first time in years. I know he’s got a challenging job keeping their program going with the numbers down, but this is kind of a sad way to end our season.”
Ryder points out when Nantucket cancelled the 2009 game due to its own numbers crunch, it did so before the season began not two weeks before the game. McCarthy countered by saying if they had 18 varsity-ready players they would have gone forward, and that Martha’s Vineyard isn’t the only team disappointed.
“I read the letter that was going out to the parents after practice on Wednesday,” Kent said. “It felt horrible. You could see their heads drop and the disappointment in their eyes. I had to make a lot of tough choices this year. This was definitely the hardest.
“I understand this is an unusual rivalry. It draws national attention. The unique aspects of it have put it in the spotlight many times, two islands facing off. No one is happy about this. I know on Saturday I’ll feel there is something else I should be doing.”
When the sun comes up over Vito Capizzo Stadium Saturday morning, kids on two windblown islands will feel the same and so will the seagulls in the end zone.