Coach Bob Tankard Resigns After Decade on the Sidelines
Mike Kolleth
Robert Tankard is calling it quits af­ter eight years as head coach of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team.
 
News of his resignation, following a 27-14 loss to Nantucket Saturday, came as a shock to his players, football fans and the high school athletic de­partment.
 
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Bob Tankard Means to Win In Work with Vineyard Youth
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.
 
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Island Football Rivalry Spans the Generations
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.
 
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Dear Nantucket: You Owe Us $63.50 on the Cup
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.

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Distractology 101: Don't Text and Drive
Heather Hamacek

This past week a Distractology trailer has been parked at the regional high school. The trailer is part of a driving simulation test given to students to show how distracted driving can equal deadly driving.

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Nantucket Lambasted
Vineyard Gazette
The Vineyarders chalked up their second win of the gridiron season last Saturday in a clear-cut 36-0 score over Nantucket High School. The regional’s outstanding defensive line, led by co-captain John Bunker, Tony DeBettencourt, Lennie DonAroma and Bob Norton, proved too much for the Nantucket gridders.
 
Offensively, Vineyarders took most of their yardage through straight drive plays. The Vineyard score consisted of five touchdowns, with Niemiec kicking for two extra points and Manny Nunes rushing for four.
 
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Island Eleven Ends Its Best Season So Far
Vineyard Gazette
The Vineyarders closed out their most successful season to date with a sparkling 5-2 record, beating Nantucket, after beating them soundly the week before on the Vineyard. Gordon Bassett and John Bunker rushed the Nantucket quarterback, Vaughan Machado, in a second period pass play from the Nantucket 30. In a play described by Assistant Coach Francis Pachico as “The most unbelievable play of the year,” Machado threw the ball away, from about his own fifteen. Only he got turned around under pressure, and threw to his own goal line.
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Football Team Too Slow in Warm-Up
Vineyard Gazette
The Regional High School football team went down to its fourth defeat of the season Saturday in a game with Nantucket at War Veterans’ Memorial Park in Vineyard Haven. The score was 14 to 8.
 
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Nantucket All the Way
Vineyard Gazette
Having lost only one game out of six this season, the Nantucket High School football team came to Veterans Memorial Park Saturday and added still another victory to its record by defeating the Regional High School team 26 to 0. Nantucket’s power and experience accounted for everything, although neither of those qualities made any real showing until the final quarter, when the Nantucketers really got all gears meshing.
 
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Vineyard Loses Nantucket Heartbreaker
Scott Smith
 
As Vineyard coach Don Herman arrived at Nantucket’s football field carrying the Island Cup last Saturday, a couple of fans wearing Nantucket sweatshirts jokingly offered to take it from him. Coach Herman smiled politely, clutched the Cup a little tighter, and kept walking.
 
Nantucket’s team was finally able to wrest the Cup from the coach’s grasp, but it took all 40 minutes of the game to do so. In a brave effort, the Vineyarders came back from a 21-6 halftime deficit to tie the game before Nantucket prevailed by the final score of 27-21.
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