Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

1987 to 1989. He also had a decisive impact on the sporting scene in Western Australia, encouraging the creation of a government Department of Sport and Recreation, and of the Western Australian Institute of Sport [WAIS], which was housed for its first three years in the UWA Department of Human Movement. With other states establishing their own institutes of sport, and with the AIS itself de-centralising some of its activities away from Canberra – for example to Perth for hockey and Adelaide (later Brisbane) for cricket – Australia had created a sporting infrastructure years ahead of traditional sporting rivals like Great Britain. 24 It was an environment eventually crucial to Ric Charlesworth but, before he took full advantage of it to become Australia’s most admired sporting coach, a decade in federal parliament intervened. 1976-1981 51 24 Information about the foundation of the Australian Insititute of Sport from Matthew Eggins, Excellence: the Australian Institute of Sport . Australian Sports Commission: Canberra, 1998.