Cord Bailey stood in the doorway of the regional high school culinary arts dining room, aviator shades on, arms crossed. Tantalizing smells of chicken and bacon floated into the hallway. Inside the dining room the annual Brazilian American Friends lunch was taking place. Only 42 lucky students were granted access.
On Sept. 21, the Framingham State University football team shut out fellow Division III opponent Bridgewater State University 16-0. It was the lone loss of the season for Bridgewater, which went 9-1 this year, earning a place in the NCAA tournament.
SAT scores at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School were above the national average in 2012 in the three areas of critical reading, writing and math, high school guidance director Michael McCarthy said this week.
Mr. McCarthy gave his annual report on SAT scores to the high school district committee on Monday night.
On average, Vineyard students performed better than their state peers in all areas except math, where they were behind by five points, Mr. McCarthy said.
Preseason practice awaits high school athletes regardless of what sport they play, but only the fall warrants its own moniker: Hell Week, which began this year on August 23. After the relatively lazy days of summer comes a fast-paced week of tryouts and tune-ups. Dawn workouts are considered the standard of Hell Week (some groups prefer the early practices because they allow players to continue their summer jobs a little longer), but on any given day in the week leading up to school you’ll find at least two teams on the fields in both the morning and the late afternoon.
When Charles McGrath wrote about the annual Island Cup game between the Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket football teams for the New Yorker in 1984, he likened it to a fierce sibling rivalry. What mainland team could hope to drum up a rivalry as poignant with either of the Island squads? For all that the Vineyarders can’t stand about the Whalers, they also know that the only football team in the entire country that could possibly understand what it means to be an Islander is that of their brother-in-isolation, Nantucket.
They are one of the most successful Vineyard teams of the year, their record only surpassed by their undefeated male counterparts and the 21-3 boys’ basketball squad. They won a second league title in the Eastern Athletic Conference; their only two regular-season losses came at the hands of Barnstable, an undefeated Division 1 powerhouse.