‘Let’s do one more year’: At 90, Nancy and Betty still teach teen boys athletics

Former elite runners Nancy Atterton (left), 90, and Betty Moore, also 90, coach athletics at a private boys’ school in Sydney. Over 50 years, through tragedy and other life hurdles, their friendship has stayed on track.

Nancy Atterton (left) and Betty Moore: their students “don’t even notice the age difference”, Nancy says. “At the end of the year, they send us cards and flowers.”Credit: Wolter Peeters

Betty: I met Nancy at the athletics track at the old Sydney Sports Ground in 1953. She was running the 200 metres. I was running the 80 metres hurdles. She was very attractive, with beautiful, red curly hair, and everyone liked her. At the time, I was running for Sydney University, where I was studying organic chemistry. Much later, in 1975, I was coaching hurdles at Ryde Women’s Athletics Club and she and her husband, John, came along to help. We met every afternoon from 4.30pm to 7pm, and it was a very intense relationship based on one thing: athletics. But I liked how she enjoyed life; she didn’t whinge and moan.

We related in other ways, too. We’re both religious. We don’t go to church together – she’s Catholic and I’m Baptist – but we both believe that God created the world. And we’ve always lived fairly close [in north-west Sydney]: for years, I was in Carlingford and Nancy and John were in North Ryde. Which was good because, in 1983, my husband walked out on me when my three daughters were teenagers.

I needed help, and Nancy was there. I’d drive past her house every Friday and have a cup of tea. She knew my husband very well, and we’d sit there and talk about how much we both hated him, and how much he was to blame. But that didn’t do anything for me. You have to be stronger than that and so, after a while, we’d both just get on with drinking our tea.

‘Nancy has always laughed at me because I’m an egghead, and I’ve always admired how she’s the star of every party.’

Betty Moore

What I admire about Nancy’s coaching is her devotion to finding the right program for every athlete, and the way she feels a responsibility to all of them to allow them to do their best.

In 1977, her son, Michael, died in a swimming accident when he was about 18. He fell into their pool and hit his head on the bottom. At the time, she, John and I were coaching a group of national-level athletes. The day Michael died, Nancy and John went to the state championships. They didn’t tell any of those athletes till the end of the week that he’d died. The athletes all knew Michael, and Nancy didn’t want to spoil their chances by telling them he was dead. Things got tough for Nancy again in 2019, when John died of motor neurone disease. Towards the end of his illness, I’d come over to her house and try to talk sense into John, who’d try to do things that he wasn’t capable of any more, and come to grief.

We’re very different people. I’m an intellectual and I analyse everything, and Nancy flies by the seat of her pants and is more instinctual. She’s always laughed at me because I’m an egghead, and I’ve always admired how she’s the star of every party. She left school in year 9, but I don’t laugh at that – that’s just what her family did – whereas I was the first person in my family to go to university. Besides, when we’re coaching [at The King’s School], we mostly discuss athletics.

It’s amazing how much boys admire her. Despite the fact that she’s 90 and they’re 15, they’d walk over hot coals for her. She inspires them and treats them with love and affection, and they respond with respect.

Left: Nancy Atterton running in 1954. Right: Betty Moore representing Great Britain in 1962.Credit: Courtesy of Nancy Atterton/Athletics Podium

Nancy: When I met Betty in the 1950s, she was competing for Sydney University and I was competing for another club. But I didn’t get to know her until we began coaching at Ryde Women’s Athletics Club in the 1970s.

Straight away, I realised that, athletically, we were on the same page: we both knew that people are different and you can’t train them the same. The only difference was the intensity. Athletics was everything for me, but Betty had a lot on her plate with a job outside in the laboratory. And then her husband left. He was leading her up the garden path and then just dumped her. I had a sister who went through the same thing, so I felt I could advise her. I do offer a lot of advice, I must admit. The kids always say, “Don’t tell people what to do.”

‘Straight away, I realised that, athletically, we were on the same page: we both knew that people are different and you can’t train them the same.’

Nancy Atterton

Betty is extremely religious. She goes to church every Sunday and is very involved with her church group, but I don’t do that. It’s not that I disagree with religion, but I do believe that it’s caused an enormous amount of problems. Even the Catholic Church not allowing euthanasia: you wouldn’t put an animal through what you let some people suffer. At the end of my husband’s illness, he decided to stop eating. Betty knew he’d stopped eating to end his life, and she respected him for that – for not putting me through any more pain.

She observes things like that, and she’s thoughtful. She calls me to go for lunch. We go to a nice little restaurant in a local club, with pokies. She likes fish, and I usually have fish, too, because we don’t have it much at home. Also, I like a glass of wine, and Betty doesn’t care if she has one or not, so she’s the better one to drive.

But we’re very different: for one thing, I’m nowhere near as intelligent as her. She was the dux of her school, while I was very rebellious at school. If I’d been in Ireland, I might have been in the IRA, quite frankly. She’s more careful; she would never have gotten into the trouble I got into. But that’s helped me in my coaching. If I get a boy who’s trouble, I pull him aside and say, “Listen, it’s not worth it.” That’s the difference between Betty and me. She wouldn’t talk to the boys like I talk to them. I’m more down-to-earth.

Sometimes she can get a little haughty. She likes to hold court a bit. When she’s driving me to the track in the morning, she talks the whole time and I couldn’t say what she’s talking about because I just let it go. But she’s not like that with the boys. They love her and accept her: they don’t even notice the age difference. At the end of the year, they send us cards and flowers. She’ll say to me, “Your boys will walk through fire for you,” but her boys would do the same for her. A little while ago, she was talking about retiring, but I got her back. I said, “Come on, let’s do one more year.” We’re old, but we’ve still got a lot to give.

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