Island Cup

Bob Tankard Means to Win In Work with Vineyard Youth

Friday September 6, 1985

Elaine Lembo

Personal victories are what Bob Tankard cares about. He relies on them, he says, because they are messages that validate life and each person’s place on earth. Bob Tankard is the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football coach.

He’s got the winner’s attitude and it just won’t quit.

When Bob Tankard says “I have a firm belief” or when he says “I mean it, I really mean it,” he clenches black hands into tight fists and squeezes his dark, merry eyes shut. His face forms a solid, peaceful expression.

Nantucket Defeats Vineyard In an Island Football Brawl

Friday November 27, 1987

Mike Kolleth

In what referees, coaches and spectators agreed was one of the dirtiest football games seen here in a long time, Nantucket High School toppled Martha’s Vineyard 27-14 Saturday.

Referees kept warm in the wind-chilled weather by walking off more than two football fields worth of penalties between the arch rivals who fought physically and verbally from the opening whistle to the final tick of the clock.

Island Football Rivalry Spans the Generations

Friday November 22, 2002

Marcus Tonti

The record shows that in 1953, an informal team of Vineyarders played football against Nantucket High School, losing 33-20. A rematch the next year yielded a scoreless tie.

Five years later, in 1959, Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School opened its doors, bringing together under one roof the ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th-graders from all six Island towns. This school consolidation enabled the Island to field an interscholastic football team for the first time, and official competition against Nantucket High School began in 1960.

Dear Nantucket: You Owe Us $63.50 on the Cup

Friday November 21, 2003

Mark Alan Lovewell

The Island Cup is a treasure shared by two Islands. Though tarnished, occasionally dropped and frequently squeezed, its significance has only increased. For 25 years the cup continues to be photographed, celebrated and coveted by athletes. And tomorrow, when Nantucket meets Martha’s Vineyard on the football gridiron, the cup is up for grabs again.

Spirited Footballers Suffer Narrow Loss

Friday November 26, 1993

Jason Gay

The memories of last Saturday will be tough to erase: the Nantucket Whalers, with coach Vito Capizzo on their shoulders, hoisting the Island Cup for all the Vineyard to see. The visitors celebrating a 7-6 victory that took the Cup, the league championship, a slot in the Division 5 Super Bowl, and Mr. Capizzo’s 200th career triumph. “Right in your back yard!” a Nantucket player screams. “We took it away from you right in your back yard.”

Vito Capizzo, a Nantucket Legend

Friday November 17, 2006

Mike Seccombe

As a 10-year-old boy in Sicily, Vito Capizzo was a sporting heretic. He never liked soccer, the sports obsession of his birth country. “Never liked it,” said the Nantucket football coach.

And 56 years since his arrival in America, after more than 40 years coaching high school football, Mr. Capizzo has more reason than ever not to like soccer, for it is robbing him of talented athletes and damaging and his reputation as the ”winningest” football coach in Massachusetts.

Just as he feared.

Fabled Island Cup Comes Home in Record Win

Friday November 24, 2006

Jim Hickey

You could hear the crowd rumbling on Saturday before the ferry carrying the high school football team, fresh from its 47-22 win over Nantucket in the annual Island Cup, had even docked in Vineyard Haven.

Vineyard Gridders Win

Friday November 20, 1964

Vineyard Gazette

The Regional High School football season, which this year has not been the happiest of times, ended on a cheerful note Saturday, when the Vineyarders trounced the Nantucket team 28-0 on its own field. Defeat at the hands of the rival Islanders would have been the final disgrace for the Vineyard team, which has been plagued through most of the season by ties and defeats. But as it turned out, everything over there on that semi-blessed isle suddenly came up roses.

Purple and White Downs Nantucket Whalers 26 to 6

Friday November 3, 1972

Howard W. Leonard

The piercing wail of fire sirens and the exuberant cheering of Regional High supporters greeted each plane-load of the victorious Purple and White football team at the Martha's Vineyard Airport Saturday evening following their first win in seven years over a Nantucket eleven.

Purple and White Is Smacked In Last Shut Out on Nantucket

Friday November 25, 1988

Paula Delbonis

The Vineyarders should have known better. No one eats whale meat anymore, and they couldn't change that Saturday on Nantucket.

More than 500 Vineyard fans chanted: "What do we eat? - Whale meat," as the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School football team lost to its Whaler rivals, 14-0.

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