Ric Charlesworth AO
Website Ric Charlesworth

Ric Charlesworth AO

Olympic Hockey Super Coach

Ric Charlesworth is a sporting icon, both for his playing efforts and later his coaching successes. During hisย sport, he studiedย Medicine and worked in Politics, but he will forever be known asย The Coach.ย He specialises in knowing what triggers people (himself included) to be the best and be their best.

Sport โ€“ as a player:ย Ric was an avid cricketer. He played for 8 years in the WA state team however his first love wasย hockey. Ric played for the Kookaburras between 1972 and 1988 playing a total of 227 Tests for Australia. This included 5 Olympic Games (including two as Captain) winning an Olympic Silver Medal at the 1976 Montreal Games.

It was here in his own sporting lifeย that he learnt the difference between being tired, and exhausted. He learnt that if he could take anything from his own playing days, it would be that to be a good coach you must distinguish the difference between the two, and push people beyond what they thought was possible.

Sport โ€“ as a coach:ย Ric prided himself on preparation and being willing to try new ideas.ย Sometimes it is necessaryย to select based on attitude, rather than skill. A strong attitude ensures the individual has both the desire and ability to be pushed.ย 

Hockeyroos coach for 8 years (1993-2000); 2 Olympic Gold medals & 2 World Cup Golds. They sat ranked #1 in the world for the entire period withย Charlesworth as coach.ย 

Kookaburras coach for 6 years (2009-2014); Olympic Bronze, 2 World Cup Golds & Commonwealth Games titles.ย 

Ric treated his coaching as anย opportunity to elevate the sports ambitions of both himself, and others,ย placing emphasis on bettering the people he had and finding new and exciting talent. Adding value to the athletesย and building depth in his squad. It was his background in medicine and politics that provided him with an unusual blend of expertise for his life as a coach.

Medicine & Politics: Ric believes itโ€™s less about sticking to one thing, and more about retraining yourself in new fields using your core competencies.ย His journey was a somewhat challenging one, studying medicine while playing international sport. Then entering parliament and moving on to coaching.ย 

He made the conscious decision andย lifestyle choice to step down from parliament as he was finding the rigours of travel and lack of family time too extreme.

Today, Ric has the likes of the AIS, AFL & Cricket Australiaย as some of his client list. He compliments these sporting organisations, with a list of corporate clients. They all shareย the underlying message that is creating a winning culture, both in their players and their managerial teams and leaders.

He is the author of 4, soon to be 5 books and bases himself in Perth, Western Australia with his family.

Ric graduated from UWA inย Medicine in 1975 and worked inย the hospital environment and general practice for 7 years. His entry into politics in 1982 led to his election as a member for Perth in Federal parliament. As part of the Hawke-Keating government, and remained there for 10 years. In 1992 he made a lifestyle decision to leave parliament, planning to work in medicine.ย 

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