Football Gam goes back to the beginning
BY STEVE SHEPPARD
The story's been told so many times it's almost legendary - how in 1964 Vito Capizzo arrived on an island he knew nothing about and in three years turned around a faltering football program, and that now, forty three years later, he's the third winningest coach in Massachusetts history and the state's active winningest coach. Vito put Nantucket on the map before it was the in place for high society, and the off-season truly was the time for Nantucketers. Beginning in 1966, when the Whalers went a perfect 6-0, fall has meant football on Nantucket.

By the 1980s and '90s, when the Whalers were in the midst of their nine Super Bowl runs, there were often more Nantucket fans at away games than there were for the home team.

Next Thursday night, Nov. 16, the Nantucket Historical Association will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1966 undefeated team and the island's football heritage with a gam at the Whaling Museum. Orchestrating the evening's festivities will be - who else? - coach Capizzo himself.

Capizzo has asked players and cheerleaders from his first Nantucket teams, to participate along with the fans and volunteers who helped the tradition get started. "When I came they had no playbook," Capizzo recalls. "I asked, 'How do you call plays?' They said, 'We draw them on the ground.'

"I told my wife, 'Don't unpack.' "

There will be other stories from the many islanders who will take part in the program. Capizzo is looking forward to having Sam Thurber, the coach of Nantucket's first undefeated team in the 1940s, talk about earlier renditions of Whaler football. People like Dick Glidden, Brian King, Steve Lamb, Glen Santos, Manny Perry, Glen Menard, Bill Reith, Wayne Viera, Bill Medeiros, Beau Almodobar and Bill Santos are only a handful of the former players Capizzo hopes will attend. Former

cheerleaders Missy Perry, Kim DeCosta, Beth Morris, Carol Walsh and Meg Roberts are also on the agenda, along with current team physician Dr. Tim Lepore.

According to NHA public relations director Peter Greenhalgh, the idea for the football evening was proposed by special events assistant Emily Pihl and heartily endorsed by NHA executive director William Tramposch. Capizzo expects to take along current team members and cheerleaders to give them some historical perspective.

"It's a great event for the kids and the community," he said. "It's bringing the past and present into one night."

It's appropriate, too, that the evening will be held immediately before the annual Homecoming game against Martha's Vineyard.

"So many people have done so much for the program over the years," Capizzo said. "This is a great tribute to the players and the program."

The evening kicks off at 7 p.m.

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