The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

WHEN the new school year begins in September at Jordan Prince Williams High School, one of the familiar faces returning students won’t see is long-time Physical Education Department head Hattie Moxey.

Arguably the most accomplished former all-around Bahamian male or female athlete, Moxey will officially retire on August 31 after serving 21 of her 47 years as a PE teacher at Jordan Prince Williams.

Her teaching career got started in 1976 at the CC Sweeting Secondary High and after enjoying a 20-year stint in government, she then moved to Charles W Saunders in 1996 before she was transferred to JPW, a year after she was named Teacher of the Year at CWS.

“I was able to teach at both my alma maters, so I think I was blessed,” said Moxey, who attended CI Gibson, formerly Pyfrom Road before she obtained a scholarship to attend JPW. “I wanted to give back to both schools and I’ve done that.

“I’ve run my race, now I’ve finished my course and I’m going home to travel and enjoy life. I’ve travelled the world, so I’m not eager to travel. I did that around the world representing the country in all the sports I played in at the Pan American Games, Central American Games, World Games, Caribbean Games.”

Moxey, who turns 69 on December 14 (the day that her mother, Christina Williams, passed away), is listed as the only Bahamian male or female to have participated in volleyball, basketball, softball, track and field, hockey, tennis, netball and horseback riding as a jockey. She represented the Bahamas on the national teams in softball, volleyball, basketball and track and field.

“I grew up in a house with boys. My mother had four boys and one girl. I never played dollhouse. I shoot marbles, his kite, spin marble, climb trees and go in the woods for poison ivy,” recalled Moxey, who had a number of other siblings through her deceased father, the late sailing captain Edgar Moxey.

“My brothers even used to bet with the boys that I could beat them running. We used to put the net at the end of the lamp-post and my brothers used to say ‘my Tita, go on the line’ and whoever wants to go on they can race her. That’s how I got started in track and field.”

Having grown up in the Kemp Road area, Moxey said every morning she ran with her brothers from Shirley Street to Montagu Road, went down to St Anne’s School, turned into Fox Hill, onto Bernard Road to Kemp Road. She did that religiously before she walked from Kemp Road to Baillou Hill Road to attend JPW,

After she completed school, Moxey said she signed up to become a teacher at the College of the Bahamas, but after she registered too late, he had to sit out a year.

Her neighbors, the Cadets, owned some horses at the Hobby Horse Race Track and she was allowed to travel with them where he maintained the stable, but eventually she got to ride the horses, got bumped a few times and that led to her competing as a jockey.

Looking back at her career, Moxey said she didn’t prefer one sport over the other.

“I enjoyed them all,” she insisted. “I was good at all of them. I couldn’t choose. I loved them all. I used to like softball because Daisy Walker was playing first base and I played shortstop.

“I remember when I made the double play at second and I made the pass to Daisy, she used to say to Daisy you could really throw the ball. That was how hard I threw it. At the time Cynthia ‘Mother’ Pratt was our third baseman.”

Although she was considered a “tomboy,” Moxey said she still managed to develop a lot of female friends, who she doesn’t see as regularly, but she still loves them all the same. She noted that whenever they meet, it’s like they were either family members.

“I’ve played on so many teams and I never had a difference with anybody,” she said. “I didn’t have any argument and every school that I taught too, nobody can say me and Ms Moxey had any differences.”

Looking back at her tenure as a coach and PE teacher, Moxey said she’s grateful to God for blessing her with the talent that passed on to those who were willing to receive them.

“Whoever wanted to learn, I taught the children from school,” Moxey said. “I never sent them out there and told them to play. I played with my students. That is why a lot of children whom I taught played so well,” she said.

“They always tried to get me as their teacher. They didn’t want to show their teacher up, so they always tried to get me. I enjoyed that. I taught so many students like Natasha Huyler at CI Gibson, who went on to become PE teachers as well.”

Does she have any regrets, Moxey said emphatically “no.” In fact, she noted that if she had to do it all over again, she would.

“Some of the systems that I worked in, you couldn’t get as much out of it as you wanted to, but that’s a part of it,” she stressed. “But I don’t have any regrets. I just felt they didn’t invest as much as they should have in the children.

“For the most part, the performances of the children were good, but the material they needed to go further just wasn’t there. You had to do too much begging for certain things and I don’t think that’s right. The powers that be in the schools should have provided the material for us to use.”

Having served in both the public and private schools, Moxey said the children are all the same.

“They are only going to give you what you give them and you will get from them what you ask from them and they will get away with whatever you allow them to do,” she pointed out. You just need to put your foot down on what you need them to do.

“I’ve been teaching for all those years and I don’t have any regrets from the children I was dealing with. You have some mischievous children and you have some children looking for love. But you have to identify these children and deal with them. In my time of teaching, that is what I did.”

Nursing a hip injury that has hampered her from doing any strenuous physical activities, Moxey said she will take her time developing a garden at her home, read her Bible and just relax, while socializing with some of her elderly neighbors, family members and friends.

With one daughter, Tamika Bain, resides in Ecuador with her five children (three legal and two adopted), Moxey said whenever she goes bored, she can make the trip there to spend some time with them.

To those she leaves behind in the teaching and coaching profession, Moxey’s advice is to “follow the rules and regulations and select the children for their teams according to their worth, rather than how you feel.

“It’s the same thing with the Bahamas. We have so much talent here that it’s unbelievable,” she noted. “But we select a few.,. We don’t always select the best. We select the ones who we could gel with or who we favor. We need to stop doing that.”

Moxey said she remembered during her participating days, if she didn’t play to earn her spot on the team she didn’t go because she felt it was a disservice to those who deserve the spot.

“I was outstanding, but it was because my brothers pushed me to be the best that I could be,” she stated. “The time that I put in, I was able to achieve the things that I did. It was in God’s plan and that was why it worked out that way for me. No one could stop that.

“It’s the same thing in the schools. I feel it’s not right for a coach to come to a school and recruit an athlete who their coaches have already put the time and energy into developing and you just come and take them. Why don’t you develop your athletes from scratch.”

To the students, Moxey said her only request is that they remain loyal.

“Whatever you are, you need to be loyal to it and be straight up with your coach,” she stressed. “Speak your mind. Whatever you are thinking about, speak your mind. Talk about it with your coach.

“And always remember that your academics are important. No matter how good you are without your academics, you won’t go anywhere. So first and foremost, go to school ,get your grades up and keep them up to par and then you can get a scholarship to go to college.”

While she walks away from JPW, Moxey said she doesn’t know who will be her successor between the two male PE teachers she leaves behind. Her bet is that Sanchez Moss will probably assume that role.

She also noted that the Bahamas Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention, under the presidency of Rev. Dr. Philip Moxy, who has replaced the late Rev. Dr. Lloyd Smith, has their work cut out for them in this transitional period.

“For me, this school should have been much further ahead than all of the other schools,” she pointed out. “I watched all of the other schools that came around and I watched the advancements they have made, this school has not done enough in the more than 50 years it’s been in existence.”

And from a national perspective, she added that she’s looking forward to Mother Pratt taking over as the new Governor General when the new sitting of the House of Assembly takes place next month.

“Mother Pratt is a good girl. That’s my girl. I wish her all the best. She represents me. She was a Moxey, so I am all with her,” Moxey said. “I pray that she enjoys the position and doesn’t get stressed out. Just go with the flow.”

Moxey said she remembered the time that she was offered a scholarship from Tom ‘the Bird’ Grant to attend St Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina,, but because she was also teaching at CI Gibson and she didn’t want to disrupt the flow of things there, she asked Grant to give it to Mother Pratt.

That decision has enabled her to complete her long tenure as a devoted and dedicated teacher for more than 40 years.