Richard McAfee has a lifelong commitment to table tennis. In his early years, McAfee was a successful player winning many singles and doubles events, including the 1972 U.S. Open Class B Championship and the Southern Open Men's Singles title. Later McAfee began to focus on his true passion of coaching. He has coached national champions in each of the past three decades, seven world-ranked players and two Olympians. In 1994 McAfee was named competition manager for Table Tennis at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. This led to further management positions on the international scene and earned him the International Olympic Committee's Olympic Merit Award. He is also certified by USA Table Tennis as a national-level coach, their highest level. Honours include the 2004 U.S. Olympic Committee Doc Counsilman Science Award for table tennis, the 2003 Georgia AAU Coach of the Year award for table tennis and the 1999 U.S. Committee Developmental Coach of the Year Award for table tennis. McAfee was inducted in to the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame in 2005.