Matt Mincone, Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) boys varsity hockey coach, had 30 experienced players ready to go at his opening practice on Dec. 2. “You didn’t see the wide talent gap you usually find between the most experienced and younger players,” Mincone said after the record turnout.
The talent pool comes courtesy of a mature and very successful youth hockey program on-Island, and a little-used waiver program overseen by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA). The state governing board allows some middle schoolers to play at the high school level through a waiver of its rules. “We’ll have 18 players on junior varsity and 10 of them will be eighth graders. Without them, no JV hockey this year,” Mincone said, adding that this will likely be the final year he’ll ask for a waiver. “The pipeline from youth hockey looks really good for years down the line,” he said.
Middle schooler participation in contact sports is limited to junior varsity teams. Participation
in other, noncontact sports, such as swimming and track, may be at the varsity level. MVRHS athletic director Mark McCarthy is not a huge fan of waivers, but has carefully applied for waivers over the past few years to support programs in danger of withering on the vine because of lack of players.
“We used waivers for the softball team last spring. We lacked enough players to field a team,” McCarthy said. The softball team responded with a six-win season, the most wins in years, and saw a youth program, the Sirens, sprout up as well.
McCarthy is a fan of youth sports teams, and sees MVRHS softball as a good example of the waiver system at work. Coach Sam Burns and her staff established the Sirens, a softball feeder program for girls new to the sport, or post–Little Leaguers. “Boys and girls have Little League and boys have Babe Ruth leagues and travel teams to transition to high school. Girls had no way to transition into the high school program until the Sirens were formed,“ McCarthy said.
Jon Chatinover likes waivers a lot.
Chatinover has had high achievers in his seven years as MVRHS swim coach, but his athletes could not win as a team in a meet because he did not have enough swimmers to participate in all the events.
Not anymore. With an MIAA waiver, he got positive contributions by seventh and eighth grade graduates of the Makos Island youth swimming program. Last winter, the Vineyarders posted their first winning season (6-4), and qualified for postseason competition at the Boston University (regionals) and MIT (states) pools. Chatinover had six middle school boys and three middle school girls in his program, and has had major contributions from the Charter School, which has contributed top-notch athletes and several team captains to the MVRHS program.
“The Makos are a godsend. It’s the perfect sport for these kids. Just the water, the clock, and the kid. And it’s good for team experience. Losing all the time [without a complete team] gets kids down,“ he has said.
It appears that the waiver gambit was the final piece in the puzzle for MVRHS swimming. The Island’s new YMCA and pool opened in 2010 opposite the high school campus. The MVRHS swim team was launched soon after. Makos Coach Rainy Goodale, a world-class swimmer and certified coach, has had boys and girls from 6 to 18 in the water learning and swimming since 2014, and her graduates are now populating the MVRHS squad.
