Vineyarders football season canceled

Updated 5 pm

The MVRHS football team made the best of a bad situation when it beat Greater New Bedford Vocational Technical High School 14-0 in the final game of its suddenly shortened season.

The squad has been depleted from 36 healthy players at the beginning of the season to 14 players by kickoff, due to injuries and team suspensions.

“We have about 20 players if you include freshmen, but it wouldn’t be safe to put them in a varsity game; they’re just not ready to be in the game at the varsity level,” athletic director Mark McCarthy told The Times. “We just felt it wasn’t in the kids’ best interest to keep going. We hated making this decision. It was not made overnight.”

Mr. McCarthy said fielding such a small squad put players at increased risk for injury.

The game was played Friday night because the consensus was that the depleted team could still be competitive against New Bedford Vo-Tech, but even that was a dicey decision. The team could have been forced to forfeit at halftime if any players had been injured, he said. “We can’t put a team out there with 12 kids.”

The sudden end to the season is the result of a trend of fewer boys coming out for football.

Turnout for football was so low this year, the Vineyarders couldn’t field a junior varsity squad.

“The numbers have been decreasing over the past several years,” Mr. McCarthy said. “It could be due to a lot of reasons, like the success of the soccer program, some attitudes are changing about football because the potential for injury; you don’t know.”

Mr. McCarthy did not specify the season-ending injuries. He also did not state reasons for the suspensions, only that the violations were team rules, not state rules.

“A few individuals had two-game suspensions, and with so few games left just figured they were done for the year,” he said.

The Vineyarders ended now 2-7 after the win over Greater New Bedford Friday night. The team’s only other win came when Atlantis Charter School forfeited.

This year would have been the 39th playing of the Island Cup between the Vineyard and Nantucket High School, and the 70th meeting overall between the two football teams. Another game that would have been played this Friday was also canceled. The opponent had not yet been picked, but would have come from a pool of teams not bound for the playoffs, under MIAA rules.

Mr. McCarthy said he’s optimistic that the Vineyard program will rebound, similar to the recent dramatic turnaround at Nantucket High. The Whalers were so depleted they elected not to play for the Island Cup in 2009. Now they’re a dominant team in their league.

“We’re looking at what we can do to promote youth football on the Vineyard,” Mr. McCarthy said. “What is it that will get more kids playing and keep them interested in the sport? You really need 15 to 20 players coming in every year to support a football program. That’s 60 players, which could support a JV and varsity program.”

Mr. McCarthy said that head coach Ryan Kent will work with the school administration, members of the Island football community, and anyone with the desire to rejuvenate football on the Island to develop a game plan.

“The program went through a down cycle in the late ’80s before Donald Herman got here,” he said. “Donald was able to work within the community, the Touchdown Club started, we were able to increase the numbers and won five state championships,” he said. “I don’t see why we couldn’t do that again.”

Coach Herman, who coached the Vineyarders from 1988 through 2015, said he agrees with the decision: “I think they made the right choice. I know it was a very hard decision, and I know they thought long and hard about it, but I think they have to make a decision for what’s best for the program, not what’s best for next week or the week after, and I think the decision they made is the decision that needs to be made.”

Coach Herman thinks the Vineyarders’ move from the EAC (Eastern Athletic Conference) to the Cape and Islands League next year will pit them against more evenly matched opponents. “It’s going to be beneficial to the program because now the kids are going to have an opportunity, at least, to be on a more competitive level week in and week out,” he said. “I think they’ll have a sense that they have a better opportunity of a possible league championship or making the postseason, and I think they’ll have more success. I think the timing is right, and this will be the turning point.”

“If you could see the way these guys are with each other, they’re like brothers,” Greg Rollins, Vineyarder staffer and father of players Sam and Kyle Rollins, said. “They’d be no closer if they were 8-0 than they are like they are now. They’re extremely, extremely close, and I get to see it every day. I’m extremely proud of the fact of how close they are.”

Mr. Rollins also praised the team’s coaching staff: “These guys are fantastic. I hope nobody for one second thinks that it has anything to do with the coaches, because in actuality, the coaches are the strength of this team. I hope they’re all around for the rebuild.”

Football fans who want to help can contact Mr. McCarthy at 508-693-1033, ext. 123, or by email at markmcarthy@mvyps.org or the Martha’s Vineyard Touchdown Club at mvfootball.com.

Concussion question

Mr. McCarthy acknowledged that concern about concussions — the current hot topic in football — could be contributing to the decline in numbers. It’s a topic in which he’s well versed. Before he moved to the Vineyard, he created and ran the Sports Concussion Program at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. “When you talk about professional athletes, they’ve been playing the game for 20 years,” he said. “We want the information out there, we want people to be aware, but I don’t think we need to be scaring people away from football. Between myself, our nurse Linda Leonard, and our athletic trainer Tania Laslovich, we run a great concussion program here.”

According to statistics, the highest incidence of concussions in any high school sport is in girl’s soccer, Mr. McCarthy said: “We would be happy to put together a forum about concussion and sports injuries, and answer any questions and dispel some of the myths, and create valuable knowledge versus something they might think is happening.”

“It’s going to be extremely important in the offseason to see what happens and people have to just get over the concerns over injuries,” Coach Herman said. “Injuries happen in any sport and they just have to realize that you prepare your body for it and give it your best shot and if you apply the proper fundamentals, you can play this game safely.”

Sports reporter Ralph Stewart contributed to this report.