Island Cup

May 28, 2012
College is the province of football rivalries, but two small high schools in Massachusetts have established a rivalry that challenges the phenomena of “Army-Navy, Ohio State-Michigan, Georgia-Florida.” The high schools on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket play annually for the coveted “Island Cup,” first awarded in 1978 after the rivalry was almost 20 years old. Sullivan (Seven Dirty Words) chronicles the evolution of the contest played not by the “wealthy white Americans” who summer there, but by “boys of polyglot heritage,” “the working people who truly define Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.” The rivalry achieved enough fame to be featured in Sports Illustrated and the New Yorker, but Sullivan’s narrative is uneven, at times to the point that chapters are little more than a series of paragraphs that themselves are isolated vignettes. Island history is a highlight interspersed between game summaries and life stories, but part of that history is “uncommonly high rates of depression, alcoholism, and suicide,” and what sadly emerges is a tale of broken homes and the physical toll of high school football.

July 15, 2012
Friday Night Lights, Northeast division. Casual sports fans know that in the South, high school football is a religion. However, few may know about a small pocket in the Northeast where the level of teenage football fanaticism is just as high. Even fewer would guess that pocket is centered on two of the most seemingly civilized areas in all of New England, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. For almost 50 years, the Martha's Vineyard High School Vineyarders and the Nantucket High School Whalers have done battle for the Island Cup, the prize given to the winner of their annual gridiron clash. Sullivan (Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin, 2010) discovered that the passion of the players, fans and local media are about this rivalry, and he does an adequate job bringing that story to the page. As in his previous outings, the author is an engaging, detailed storyteller, giving us intimate glimpses into the lives of the players, coaches and locals, and making the intensity of the Whaler-Vineyarder rivalry palpable. He moves back and forth in time, without ever losing control of the material. However, due to the nature of the story, the narrative is a patchwork quilt, and the lack of a singular arc makes it come across as a series of interconnected essays. While this is a more-than-competent, readable book, it's not quite sporty enough for serious football fans and not quite rich enough for hardcore history buffs. With its soap-operatic storyline, Friday Night Lights transcended geography, but this less linear, more episodic book likely won't resonate far beyond New England.

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