A house divided: Thrower family ready for tonight's rivalry game
Aug. 26—Decatur Middle School teacher Cassandra Thrower said she finds herself at a crossroads every year during the Austin-Decatur high school football game because her son, Elijah, attends Austin High and she's never quite sure who to root for.
"In the last few years, I've been right in the middle," Thrower said. "Decatur will make a good play and I'll be like, 'Whoo!' And Austin will make a good play and I'll cheer, and people ask me who I'm going for."
Thrower always replies with "both of them."
"They're all mine," Thrower said. "I taught most of them or they've all been at our house."
She said she always gets teased by her students during basketball season because Elijah plays basketball for Austin, and as the two football rivals face each other tonight, the good-natured heckling will resume for the two schools.
Thrower and her husband Shelley moved to Decatur from Arkansas in 2006 when Eljiah was just 15 months old and their daughter Alexis was 5. Cassandra Thrower has been a teacher at Decatur High, Brookhaven Middle and Decatur Middle since 2009, and Shelley has been working as a physical trainer for the football teams at Austin High, Austin Junior High, and Austin High for four years.
"I guess I'm just the odd one out," Thrower said of working on the southeast side of town.
Shelley said he was first made aware of the rivalry while he and his family were attending church at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church during the first few years the family lived in Decatur.
"I'd say we went to church with a good mix of Austin and Decatur fans," Shelley said.
Shelley said he remembered some of the parishioners "bickering" about the game on Sunday mornings.
Growing up with several friends who now attend Decatur High, Elijah said it is highly competitive on the gridiron and basketball court between the two schools, but there is never any loss of respect for one another.
"We all grew up together playing in rec league basketball and were on the same teams, but when we got to middle school, we all had to split up," Elijah said.
Elijah, a senior who'll play point guard on Austin's basketball team, said he looks forward to facing his rivals every year.
"Decatur has never beat me," Elijah said with a smile. "They always want to beat us though."
Cassandra always reminds her son, "They're your friends, but on the court they're not."
"We'll be talking to each other on the court, but we still get at it," Elijah said.
The Throwers said the rivalry between the two schools is not as intense as it used to be, when fans would roll each other's yards or create school logos on cars the week of the game.
"The kids now are not into that stuff anymore," Shelley said. "That was more for the older crowds."
Elijah said he remembers hearing stories about Decatur students stealing a stuffed black bear from Austin High's campus but said the smack talk now mostly takes place on social media.
He said the tension will be thick at the game tonight, but it'll just be the first installment of the rivalry this school year. The basketball games between Austin and Decatur this year will also be the talk of the town, he said.
"We'll be real hostile, especially on social media," Elijah said. "Everybody is really into basketball here in Decatur."
— wesley.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438.
