Percy Newbold "Peter" Coe (27 September 1919 – 9 August 2008) was a British

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of Athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...

, author, translator and coach of his son

Sebastian Coe Sebastian Newbold Coe, Baron Coe, (born 29 September 1956), often referred to as Seb Coe, is a British sports administrator, former politician and retired track and field athlete. As a middle-distance runner, Coe won four Olympic medals, incl ...

Early life and education

Coe was born Percy Newbold Coe in

Stepney Stepney is an area in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London. Stepney is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name was applied to ...

, the only child of carpenter and joiner Percy Coe (1893–1974), who had served with the

East Surrey Regiment The East Surrey Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1959. The regiment was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 31st (Huntingdonshire) Regiment of Foot, the 70th ( ...

and

East Kent Regiment The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), formerly the 3rd Regiment of Foot, was a line infantry regiment of the British Army traditionally raised in the English county of Kent and garrisoned at Canterbury. It had a history dating back to 1572 and ...

during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, and Violet, daughter of professional gambler and gymnast (part of a family music-hall tumbling act) Henry Brereton Newbold. Percy and Violet Coe were both of humble working-class origins; their grandson Sebastian Coe observed "my grandparents... barely had an education at all." Violet was from a

Cockney Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle class roots. The term ''Cockney'' is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End, ...

family, and worked as a

charwoman Charwoman, chargirl, charlady and char are occupational terms referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the ho ...

for a family in Fulham; when her employer, Gladys Minson, suggested she move closer- the Coes were then living in "one room in

Whitechapel Whitechapel () is an area in London, England, and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in east London and part of the East End of London, East End. It is the location of Tower Hamlets Town Hall and therefore the borough tow ...

"- to reduce the daily commute, and the family's straitened circumstances were made evident, the Minson family bought the house next door and gave it to the Coes outright. They lived there for the rest of their lives. Coe had a younger brother, Peter, who died in infancy in 1928, and he took on his brother's first name as a dedication to him. He was brought up in just two rooms on Cambridge Heath Road. Although he won a scholarship to

Westminster School Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as do ...

, going there from a West London comprehensive school was a culture shock for Coe, and he shortly left after having been offered a similar scholarship for the

Emanuel School Emanuel School is a private, co-educational day school in Battersea, south-west London. The school was founded in 1594 by Anne Sackville, Lady Dacre and Queen Elizabeth I and today occupies a 12-acre (4.9 ha) site close to Clapham Junction ...

Battersea Battersea is a large district in southwest London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and also extends along the south bank of the Thames Tideway. It includes the Battersea Park. Hist ...

Career

Coe worked in the merchant navy at the age of 19, during the Second World War, and was on a boat named the A.D. ''Huff'' that was torpedoed by the German battle cruiser Gneisenau, leaving him as one of only five survivors. He was picked up by a German boat, and was made to work in the kitchens, because he spoke fluent German. He was to be transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp, but escaped by jumping off a train, along with a Canadian prisoner. He then walked all the way from Germany to Spain where he was imprisoned for six months. After the war, while Sebastian was still young, the family moved up to Sheffield from Middlesex, and he worked there as a production engineer in a steel cutlery factory, George Butler & Co., eventually becoming production manager. He did not begin coaching Seb until just before he turned 50, his favourite sport being cycling rather than athletics. As an

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

, Coe became dissatisfied with the athletics coaching offered to his son Sebastian at his first club, Hallamshire Harriers. This training was based on the principles propounded by the New Zealand coach

Arthur Lydiard Arthur Leslie Lydiard (6 July 1917 – 11 December 2004) was a New Zealand runner and athletics coach. He has been lauded as one of the outstanding athletics coaches of all time and is credited with popularising the sport of running and makin ...

, and involved a substantial amount of long-distance running. By contrast, Coe took the view that "long slow training turned you into a long slow runner", and adopted a system of speed-endurance training involving fast repetitions with short recoveries, based on the ideas of the German coach Woldemar Gerschler. He used his fluency in German to translate many East German books on training. Much of his training was also based on self-taught

biomechanics Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems, at any level from whole organisms to Organ (anatomy), organs, Cell (biology), cells and cell organelles, using the methods of mechani ...

, from his background as an engineer. In addition to coaching his son Sebastian, Peter Coe also coached

Wendy Smith-Sly Wendy Sly MBE (née Smith, born 5 November 1959) is a British former athlete, who competed mainly in the 3000 metres. She won a silver medal in the event at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She won the 1983 10km World Road Race Championships in ...

, who placed second in the 3000 metres at the

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and commonly known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the ...

. He would often refer to himself as Sebastian Coe's coach rather than his father.

Personal life

Coe's first marriage ended in divorce, and in 1954 he married Tina Angela Lal, with whom he had four children including

. Coe's second wife, and mother of four of his five children, Tina Angela Coe (''née'' Lal), died in

Hammersmith and Fulham Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, in 2005, aged 75. Peter Coe died in 2008, aged 88. He and his son Sebastian remained close up until his death, speaking almost every day on the phone. Previously they had co-written two books on athletics coaching together. He was posthumously inducted into the

England Athletics Hall of Fame The England Athletics Hall of Fame was launched in 2008 with a panel of experts selecting a list of potential inductees for athletics fans and members of the public to vote on. The Hall of Fame honours those who have made an outstanding contribut ...

in 2015.

Publications

* ''Winning Running: Successful 800m & 1500m Racing and Training''. Peter Coe, Trafalgar Square Publishing, * ''Better Training for Distance Runners''. David E. Martin, Peter N. Coe, Human Kinetics Publishers,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coe, Peter 1919 births 2008 deaths People from Stepney Sportspeople from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets English athletics coaches Place of death missing