Harendra Singh is an Indian

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

coach and former international player. He is a former head coach of India's men's,

women's A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

and junior teams.

Playing career

Hailing from

Chhapra Chhapra is a city and headquarters of the Saran district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is situated near the junction of the Ghaghara River and the Ganges River. Chhapra grew in importance as a river-based market in the 18th century when th ...

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

, Singh started his career as a halfback playing with IFFCO Tokio in Delhi. In 1988, he joined the

Mahindra & Mahindra Mahindra & Mahindra Limited (M&M) is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai. It was established in 1945 as Mahindra & Mohammed and later renamed as Mahindra & Mahindra. Part of the Mahindra Group, ...

team in Mumbai on the insistence of former India coach J. M. Carvalho. He switched to Air India in 1990 and later became the company's senior manager. Singh made his international debut at the

1990 Asian Games The 1990 Asian Games also known as the XI Asiad and the 11th Asian Games ( zh, c=第十一届亚洲运动会, p=Dì shíyī jiè yàzhōu yùndònghuì), were held from September 22 to October 7, 1990, in Beijing, China. This was the first Asian Ga ...

in Beijing, where India won silver. He represented the Indian hockey team in 43 matches before retiring at the age of 26 citing "too much politics in hockey."

Coaching career

Singh started playing for the French club HC Lyon in 1995 under coach Tony Fernandes who asked Singh to manage the club's junior side "realising his potential as coach". After a few years of coaching in France, he returned to India and worked in various coaching and managerial roles of national senior and junior teams in tournaments such as

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

2005 Men's Hockey Junior World Cup The 2005 Men's Hockey Junior World Cup was the eighth edition of the Men's Hockey Junior World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national under-21 national field hockey teams organized by the International Hockey Federation. It wa ...

2006 Men's Hockey World Cup The 2006 Men's Hockey World Cup was the 11th edition of the Hockey World Cup men's field hockey tournament. It was held 6–17 September 2006 in Mönchengladbach, Germany. Germany won the tournament for second consecutive time after defeating Aus ...

2006 Asian Games 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

2009 Men's Hockey Asia Cup The 2009 Men's Hockey Asia Cup was the eighth edition of the Men's Hockey Asia Cup, the quadrennial international men's field hockey championship of Asia organized by the Asian Hockey Federation. It was held from May 9 to May 16, 2009 in Kuantan ...

and

2010 Men's Hockey World Cup The 2010 Men's Hockey World Cup was the 12th edition of Men's Hockey World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national field hockey teams organized by the International Hockey Federation. It was held from 28 February to 13 March ...

. He was awarded the

Dronacharya Award The Dronacharya Award, officially known as Dronacharya Award for Outstanding Coaches in Sports and Games, is sports coaching honour of the Republic of India. The award is named after Drona, often referred as "Dronacharya" or "Guru Drona", a ch ...

in 2012. Singh was appointed head coach of the Indian junior team in 2014, and the team won the

2016 Men's Hockey Junior World Cup The 2016 Men's Hockey Junior World Cup was the 11th edition of the Hockey Junior World Cup for men, an international field hockey tournament. It was held in Lucknow, India from 8–18 December 2016. A total of sixteen teams competed for the titl ...

. In September 2017, he was appointed as the head coach of the

India women's national field hockey team The Indian women's national field hockey team (nicknamed the ''Nabhvarna'') represents India in international field hockey, and is governed by Hockey India. Nabhvarna are currently ranked 6th in the FIH World Rankings, and are ranked as the b ...

which went on to win the gold medal at the

2017 Women's Hockey Asia Cup The 2017 Women's Hockey Asia Cup was the ninth edition of the Women's Hockey Asia Cup. It was held from 28 October to 5 November 2017 in Kakamigahara, Gifu, Japan. The winner of this tournament qualified for the 2018 World Cup in England. India w ...

. In May 2018, Singh was named as the head coach of the men's national team, replacing Sjoerd Marijne of the Netherlands who took over the women's team. Singh thus became the first Indian to be appointed full time as the men's team head coach since 2008. Prior to this, he had three stints with the team as interim head coach. The team won silver at the

2018 Men's Hockey Champions Trophy The 2018 Men's Hockey Champions Trophy was the 37th and the last edition of the Hockey Champions Trophy for men. It was held from 23 June to 1 July 2018 in Breda, Netherlands. The tournament will be replaced by the Hockey Pro League (HPL) in 2019 ...

, his first assignment in the role, losing the final to Australia in penalties. Singh was removed as the head coach in January 2019, as the team struggled in other tournaments in 2018. He was reportedly offered the job of head coach of the men's junior team, which he rejected. In 2021, he was appointed head coach of the United States men's national team.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Harendra Indian male field hockey players Indian field hockey coaches People from Chhapra Recipients of the Dronacharya Award Field hockey players at the 1990 Asian Games Asian Games medalists in field hockey Asian Games silver medalists for India Medalists at the 1990 Asian Games Year of birth missing (living people) Living people