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.

 

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.

 

 

The end-zone boys were the only ones in or around the high school field Saturday afternoon who didn’t flinch at the negative-five windchill factor.

 

These hardies stood under the goal posts dressed in light sweatshirts and watched the Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard football teams battle up and down the hard-packed field. When the Vineyard broke a big gain, they threw their fists into the air and shouted approval.

 

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.

 

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.

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.