Achievers' Index

Raymond Whiteside

Olympic Athlete and Successful Businessman.

Ray Whiteside was born in Lahore in 1932 and attended Sherwood College from 1941 to 1947 inclusive. He left because his parents decided to migrate to Australia in 1948.

Ray's achievements in college can be summarized as follows. He won the 100 yards dash in his first year equalling the school record for under 10's. He also broke the school record for under 12s in the 440 yards. In 1946 he won the Junior Rex Ludorum by either winning or placing in 7 athletics events. He was successful at boxing, and won the school colours by winning his weight in 1944, 1945, 1946 and 1947, and was twice awarded the Most Scientific Boxer Prize in the Junior Weights. He was a member of the college physical acrobatics team for Founders Week for several years, and was a member of the college and glee choirs from 1942 onwards. In 1945 he was runner up in the Punjab Amateur Boxing Championships in his weight.

When the family settled in Australia it wasn't long before Ray helped organize a hockey team from all the boys who had settled from India in the same street in Melbourne. (Ray had captained the Little John House hockey team in the Under 15s). The team was entered in the Melbourne weekly competition and became very successful and after amalgamating with a Dutch based team. They won their way from a lowly based B4 team to the top Grade A1 team in Melbourne.

Ray was selected to play for the Victorian Under 21-hockey team in 1951, and for the next 6 years represented the State of Victoria in the Australian Hockey Championships. It was at these Championships in 1955 that Ray was first selected to play for Australia against New Zealand.

The next year, 1956, he was selected to represent Australia in the 1956 Olympic Games. It was Australia's first ever hockey entry into the Olympic Games and Australia came equal fourth with Great Britain. Unfortunately Australia lost the play-off for fourth but were placed fifth in the overall tournament. Ray played in every game and was named best of the Australians in all of the qualifying games.

Ray's father was also an Olympic athlete, having represented India in the 100 and 200 metres in the Berlin Games held in 1936. He was very active at Sherwood, and was invited every year to go up and judge the boxing and the athletics. He was All Indian Lightweight Boxing Champion 3 years running before he took up athletics.

Ray's business career was also successful. He qualified as an accountant, but in his late twenties secured a sales position with IBM, which is where he learned his new profession of computers. He was at the forefront of the introduction of the first mini computers into Australia, and has held senior management positions since 1966 in the computer industry. In 1969 he helped General Electric introduce the new concept of Time Sharing into Australia, and later helped Honeywell introduce their new small and medium systems into Sydney where he had moved with his family in 1970.