Winthrop is one of those communities, similar to Everett, where you can go to a football game on a Friday night and swear you’re back in the 1950s.
Most communities these days are a little too fragmented to bring back that kind of memory. But not Winthrop. For a town of its size, the Vikings have always put tough, gritty and competitive football teams on the field. It’s been a source of pride, too. We’re the smallest school in the Northeastern Conference, the townsfolk would say over there. And look at us!
The Vikings have their years where their size holds them back from being competitive. But they also have seen some great glory too, and one of the reasons they always did was because of guys like Anthony Palmer, who died last week at the age of 41.
There’s something about small towns and sports. The bigger the city or town, the less of a civic event sports become. In smaller communities, though, the team and its fortunes are pretty much all-consuming. And that goes double with the smalltown team has something about which to crow.
And boy, has Winthrop had plenty about which to crow over the years. And those two seasons in the 1990s — ’92 and ’93 — were two of the best, says longtime Winthrop booster/PA announcer/columnist/all-around fan Jim Lederman, whose vociferous support of Anthony Palmer and other Winthrop athletes is legend, at least over there.
“I gave him the nickname ‘Touchdown Tony Palmer,'” said Lederman. Palmer earned the moniker. In his senior season (1993) Palmer led the state with 195 points. The closest anybody’s come since then was in 2015 when Doug Santos of Peabody had 190.
“(Palmer) carried that team to two straight Super Bowls,” said Lederman. “He put that team on his shoulders.
“I classify him as one of the three greatest backs of all-time in Winthrop, the others being Chuckie Sullivan and Steve Staffier,” said Lederman, who says he has seen every Winthrop football game for 47 years.
Unfortunately for the Vikings, both of those postseason games — played at Miller Field — ended up in close, heartbreaking losses.
“But,” said Lederman, “he scored two touchdowns in each game.”
In the 1994 Agganis All-Star football game, one player from each team is given the honor of wearing Agganis’ No. 33 — and Palmer earned that distinction for his team. He was also the game’s MVP.
Moreover, until Calvin Johnson went back-to-back in 2016 and 2017, Palmer was the only other player to receive consecutive Item Player of the Year honors.
Palmer wasn’t just a football player. He actually came into Winthrop High billed as a freshman phenomenon hockey goalie. He was every bit as advertised on the ice, too — a four-time Northeastern Conference all-star. He was also a standout on the baseball diamond.
It’s easy to recite stats, and they certainly provide one measure of a person’s impact on his community. But not the only measure.
“I remember his senior season when Winthrop beat Revere on Thanksgiving,” said Lederman. “Tony scored 30 points in that game. Afterward, as he was walking out of the stadium, there were at least 30 youth football kids lined up to get his autograph.
“It was unbelievable,” he said. “That’s the kind of hero he was to those kids. He was a superstar to them.”
Palmer went to UMass thinking he’d still run the football, but the coach there at the time had other ideas, and wanted to turn him into a receiver. Palmer transferred to Stonehill, where he played as a running back.
For a guy whose team lost only one regular-season game in two years, that defeat will be my lasting memory of “Touchdown Tony Palmer.” It was against Lynn Classical, and the Rams had a pretty good team. But it was at Winthrop, on a Saturday afternoon, and the place was packed to the gills.
Lederman was perched in the press box and was in fine form as he did the public address for the game.
But on this day Classical jumped out to a huge lead, and to say the Winthrop crowd was stunned is putting it mildly. The crowd was struck silent.
Then, “Touchdown Tony Palmer” put on one of the best one-man shows I’ve ever seen, and the Vikings nearly made it all the way back. They didn’t, but it took a sack on the last play of the game by Matt Laurino to assure the victory.
Those Classical kids played a great game that day, but I left Miller Field astounded at how effortlessly — or so it seemed — Palmer picked that team up and nearly carried it to victory.
That is how I prefer to remember him. He was an exceptionally talented high school player whose skills electrified every field on which he played for three football seasons. He was the perfect player for a town that holds its athletes in high regard.
His death leaves a void, not just in Winthrop but for anyone who watches, and appreciates, high school football in all its traditional Americana.
