Education
University of Canterbury.
University of Canterbury.
He played right half. He was selected for the 1980 Summer Olympics, but most sports in New Zealand boycotted the Moscow games so he did not compete. He had 25 international caps for New Zealand.
Ackerley was born in Dunedin but grew up in Ashburton.
He graduated from the University of Canterbury, where he played in the Canterbury University hockey club in the late 1960s. He was a secondary school mathematics teacher at Linwood High School, Christchurch and then head of the maths department at Awatapu College, Palmerston North.
He transferred to the Education Ministry inspectorate, and then the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, where he was in the group that developed the NCEA. He joined Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) in 2004 as a senior advisor in coaching and volunteers. Ackerley died in Wellington, New Zealand aged 61 on 3 May 2011 from skin cancer after a short illness.