Ric Charlesworth

Ric Charlesworth is a doctor of medicine and a former captain of the Australian Hockey Team, the Western Australian State Hockey Team and Cricket Team. He played hockey for Australia for a record 16 years

He was elected a member of Federal parliament in 1983 and retired 10 years later and took on the position of National Coach of the Australian Women’s Hockey Team from 1993 to 2000.

His coaching formula is part of the reason for the sustained success of the team at Atlanta and Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. For 8 consecutive years the team was ranked number one in the world. He won Australian Team Coach of the Year six times in 1994 and from 1996 to 2000.

Ric is the author of the book “The Coach – managing for success” released in October 2001. His second book titled “Staying at the Top” gives his principles of how to get to be the best and more importantly how to stay there.

In 2001, Ric was appointed a Master Coach by the International Hockey Federation and is described as one of the world’s best coaches.

During 2003 and 2004 Ric worked with the Australian Institute of Sport as a mentor coach to 5 national team coaches and has been a high performance consultant to the Fremantle Football Club for two years.

In 2002, he received an honorary Doctorate of Science at the University of Western Australia and completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in philosophy and history also at the University of Western Australia.

During 2003 and 2004 he lived in Italy, writing and consulting in Europe with teams from professional soccer and rugby. His latest book ‘Shakespeare the Coach’ was written while in Italy.

In 2005 Ric was selected as Western Australia’s greatest ever hockey player and also Western Australia’s greatest ever coach. Between November 2005 and November 2007 he worked as High Performance Manager of New Zealand Cricket.

After being appointed as Technical Advisor to Indian Hockey Ric began to work there in December 2007 until August 2008. In October 2008 he was appointed as head coach of the Australian Men’s hockey team until the London Olympics.