Friday, September 27, 1996

Friendly rivals insist they support both high schools

By BILL WHITAKER
Associate Editor

For the "first ladies" of Abilene and Cooper high schools, you might expect this week to be one of supreme rivalry.

After all, tonight offers a lively matchup between Cooper and Abilene High - and Kathy Curtis, wife of AHS principal Royce Curtis, and Nikki Short, wife of CHS principal Jim Short, teach right across the hall from each other at Franklin Middle School.

But there's no good-natured, back-and-forth sniping going on here. No jokes about pinning Eagles' wings back or declawing Cougars.

This pleasant pair say they spend far more time managing their husbands' excitement than worrying about each other.

"Royce handles the stress of his job well," Kathy Curtis says. "But he's very competitive. He played sports in high school, and he loves to win. He hates to lose. During football season, I don't think he sleeps much on Friday night."

He's too keyed up from the games just played.

That goes double this year, because Abilene High comes into district play undefeated for the first time in more than a decade.

Although the principals' wives teasingly sport outfits celebrating their husbands' schools - mostly for benefit of the news media - Mrs. Curtis and Mrs. Short are happy to stay above the daily fray.

That doesn't mean they won't be rooting for their husbands' schools tonight. It just means they're too polite to let it spill over into the hallways of Franklin Middle School.

"They're both so sweet," Franklin assistant principal Cathy Ashby says.

Nikki Short says many northside kids under her tutelage remain unaware her husband oversees the high school across town.

"I think very few kids know I have ties to Cooper," she says. "Now, there's a man on our teaching team, Mr. (Kenneth) Short, and all the kids want to know if I'm married to him. That's usually how it comes up. Funny thing is, he's married to a teacher at Cooper.

"But if the kids ask where my loyalties are, I tell them we live in a town with two excellent high schools. When Abilene High is playing, I yell for them, and when Cooper High is playing, I yell for them."

And when the two high schools play each other?

"I tell them that, because my children and my husband are there, I yell for Cooper, but I don't yell against Abilene High. This is my 12th year at Franklin and, well, a lot of the kids I've taught here are at Abilene High now.

"I could never root against those kids."

Mrs. Curtis says the topic doesn't surface often, but it helps she's on "friendly turf" and has two daughters at Abilene High. (Incidentally, some students have asked whom she's married to, and once, when she said the Abilene High principal, a student replied: "Oh ... you mean Mr. Nichols?")

To their credit, Mrs. Short and Mrs. Curtis prefer to look at the situation in broader terms - especially that of school pride.

"You see how hard they work and the coaches work," Mrs. Curtis says. "From that, everyone learns about victory and defeat, and there are important lessons about life in that. But the thing I like most about the Abilene High-Cooper game is not just the game but the abundance of spirit."

She says there's as much to get excited about watching the spirit squads and the bands - including all the middle school bands playing tonight - as there is in the big game itself.

"All the kids play from the heart, so you never know what will happen," Mrs. Short says. "It's just so wonderful to see, during the game, how everyone wants to do their very best. And we want the kids to feel that pride, to feel that their school is the best."

"It goes back to self-esteem," Mrs. Curtis says. "It's a springboard to other points of pride, pride of school and city and country."

Expect both teachers to show their true colors tonight.

Incidentally, win or lose, AHS principal Royce Curtis will probably still need a Sunday nap to make up for sleep lost tonight.