SOUTH KINGSTOWN – Although she has lived in North Kingstown for 20 years, Vicki Tefft's roots in South Kingstown still run deep.

The veteran educator grew up in Wakefield, attended South Kingstown High School, taught in South Kingstown schools for 28 years until retiring in 2002, coached South Kingstown boys and girls for 34 years and built the boys volleyball program from club sport to state champion.

So imagine her disappointment when the School Committee last February upheld Superintendent Robert Hicks' interpretation of Rhode Island retirement law and appointed Jackie Fagan, an active teacher in the school system, as head coach of the boys volleyball team, a position that Tefft had held since the program gained varsity status in 1993.

"Retiring from teaching doesn't mean resigning from coaching," Tefft said in an interview this week.

Imagine the mixed emotions she felt when South Kingstown played North Kingstown for the state championship in May while she was a volunteer assistant coach with North Kingstown.

"It was odd. It was almost like I was an observer. Changing side of the courts doesn't negate all the feelings I had for the kids and their parents. That South Kingstown team you saw on the floor was a team I had worked with for a long time," she said.

Imagine her reaction when Fagan alleged in a postseason interview that Tefft took advantage of the South Kingstown boys by asking them to testify before the School Committee, Fagan saying, "I think they were coerced."

"That's totally false. I never asked anybody to get up in front of anybody. I never asked anybody to write letters. I can fight my own battles," Tefft said.

And to Fagan's comment that Tefft "put them in a difficult situation during the season."

Said Tefft: "I never did anything to hurt that team. That's a reflection of her perception of the world."

Fagan's remarks and Tefft's responses will probably ratchet up the intense rivalry between South Kingstown and North Kingstown, and the two coaches won't have too wait until next spring to meet again on the court. Tefft was recently hired as head coach of the North Kingstown girls, and they will play South Kingstown this fall.

Jackie Fagan is not some rabble-rousing carpetbagger fresh on the local scene. She planted roots in South Kingstown in 1975, when she left home in Warwick to play volleyball at the University of Rhode Island. She was Jackie Elmer then, the first female athlete in URI history to receive a full athletic scholarship. After helping the Rams win a national championship and playing professionally in the U.S. and Europe, she returned to South Kingstown to teach and coach. She was inducted into the URI Hall of Fame in 2004.

"The bottom line is I did want to coach. I waited quite a while, especially for a boys team," Fagan said.

She waited because Tefft had the boys and girls teams at South Kingstown High School, a situation that Fagan expected to change after Tefft retired from teaching in 2002.

"I wanted to coach, but I wanted to let her finish. She told me seven or eight years ago that she was going to retire and she didn't. I tried to let her end it on her terms," Fagan said.

When the School Department, its interpretation of retirement law giving an edge to active teachers, posted the girls position in 2004, Fagan applied and got the job. Tefft said she had a championship caliber team that year as well.

"The best coaches in the state said it was my year to win. I wrote a letter to her saying I would resign after the 2004 season. It was a natural ending point for me because the seasons were switching, the girls to the fall and the boys to the spring. I never got a response. She never spoke to me. The same thing happened this year," Tefft said.

Fagan said "a lot of people encouraged me to take the position" this year. Those people included players, parents and her husband Chris, assistant coach for the South Kingstown girls and boys.

Tefft, a member of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Hall of Fame, wanted to coach this year and said that parents encouraged players to testify on her behalf.

"They wanted me to coach," she said. "I had taken toddlers to a place where they could play, and I wanted to see them through. Would I have resigned after that? I don't know."

She didn't challenge the decision further, she said, "because of money and time but most of all negative energy."

After her hiring, Fagan did not discuss the circumstances. Only after the season did she reveal her feelngs.

"I wasn't going to let this affect my boys. I didn't want them reading articles about this thing with Vickie . . . It's not about the coaches," she said.

Fagan wondered if player loyalty would be an issue, but it wasn't.

"As soon as we started practice, they could see the level went up. I've had some very good coaches, so I have these very good drills," she said. "My goal was to play hard and have fun. The fringe benefit is we won the state championship."

Fagan took the team that Tefft had nurtured from JV caliber at the start of the 2008 season to a near-upset of Toll Gate at the end, made adjustments and produced a state champion with a 3-2 victory over North in the final.

Tefft joined her friend Joanne Fitts, head coach at North Kingstown, to avoid going a season without coaching, which, she said, is her passion. She knew many of the Skippers, as well as players from other towns, from directing a 4-on-4 league with Fitts.

"My philosophy is I don't care what uniform you wear. I taught a lot of kids from a lot of schools. Even though they weren't my players, I trained them because I love the game and I want to raise the level of play in the state."

South Kingstown and North Kingstown were the best teams in Rhode Island last spring. South lost one match, to North. And North lost only two during the regular season, to South and to East Providence.

During the final between the South County archrivals, Tefft saw players she had nurtured at South Kingstown, Casey Barlow and Sam Gross, John Alm and Nick Cicchese, Nate Finnegan and Ben Gross, withstand the challenge of players she had helped at North Kingstown, Mike Ohanian and Sean Reisch, Brett Stetson and Dan Tisser, Brad Warburton and J.P. Adley.

"Watching two teams you love compete, who do you want to win? It's like watching your two kids. I just wanted then to play their best," she said.

The North Kingstown boys played well in that championship match, but the South Kingstown boys played a little better. Regardless of the outcome that Saturday at Rhode Island College, Vicki Tefft could not lose.

mszostak@projo.com