Chris Spice

Position: Volunteer Assistant Alma Mater: Edith Cowan University, 1992

Chris Spice, a veteran of the international hockey scene, returned to the UVa hockey staff for the 2012 season as a volunteer assistant. Spice spent the 2006 and 2007 in Charlottesville as the associate head coach before heading to England to work as the performance director for Great Britain Basketball.

Spice is a former international hockey player and gold medal winning coach with Australia. In his time with the Hockeyroos, the team was ranked number one in the world from 1993 to 1997 winning two Champions Trophies, the World Cup for the first time in 1994 and Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996. The Hockeyroos also won the Rabobank Champions' Trophy in 1993, 1995 and 1997.

In his most recent role with Great Britain Basketball, Spice was responsible for the performance of the Great Britain senior and under 20 programmes as well as working with the home nations to develop a systematic approach to elite player development.

In 2001, he accepted the job of Performance Director for England Rugby and was in this role when England lifted the Rugby World Cup for the first time in 2003. Despite leaving the RFU in 2005 the system of elite player development he left in place delivered a second-place finish for England four years later.

He was appointed Performance Director of Great Britain and English Hockey in 1997 and oversaw the men's and women's GB teams until early 2001. The England men and women won silver and bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia and two European medals in 1998. The GB men returned to the top six in the world after a promising performance at the Olympic games in Sydney in 2000.

A 1992 graduate of Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, Spice was awarded the Royal Institute of Parks and Recreation academic prize as the outstanding student of 1992 and earned an elite hockey coaching scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport. He earned his FIH Grade 1 Hockey Coach certificate in Brussels in 1996.