OAKLAND, CA – The back-to-back NBA Champion Golden State Warriors have hired Dr. Rick Celebrini as Director of Sports Medicine and Performance, the team announced today.
Celebrini, a sports and orthopedic physiotherapist, joins the Warriors after spending the previous eight years as Head of Sports Medicine and Science for Major League Soccer’s Vancouver Whitecaps FC. Additionally, Celebrini served as Director of Rehabilitation for the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, a franchise he joined as a consultant in 2014. He is also the Chief Sport Officer and co-founder of Fortius Sport and Health, an athlete development center located in British Columbia.
“Rick is a world-class physiotherapist and will play a vital role in helping to sustain the performance level of our players,” said Warriors President of Basketball Operations/General Manager Bob Myers. “He has worked closely with a number of elite athletes throughout his career and is a great fit for our organization as we strive to maintain the on-court successes of these past few seasons.”
As a therapist and consultant, Celebrini has also worked with the Dallas Mavericks, the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, the Canadian Alpine Ski Team, Canadian Soccer Association and the NHL Players Association. In 2010, Celebrini served as chief therapist at the Vancouver Winter Olympics and was the manager of medical services for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC).
A native of Burnaby, British Columbia, Celebrini is a former professional soccer player and represented the Canadian National Team in the 1987 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile. He graduated with a degree in physical therapy from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1992 and, in 2011, received his PhD in rehabilitation sciences from the faculty of medicine at UBC. He recently received a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa from Capilano University.
