Yep... the first thing I would say is stay at uni for the extra year and graduate with your grad dip of secondary education... I would be unemployed if it wasn’t for the grad dip... thank you cushy 12 month government contract... It sounds bad but its almost impossible to work full time with athletes solely unless your on contract to someone big like the ARU, AIS, NRL… even then its still rare..

It can be an incredibly exciting field to work in, but the reality is 90% paper work and crap... 10% free tickets and travel, knowing and befriending athletes.

I’m currently working at a government education facility teaching basic Anatomy, exercise physiology, biomechanics, intro nutrition, and some coaching units 9-5, 5 days a week.. I get very good pay and great leave, flexible working conditions, I guess this is where teaching really helps… it gives me the $$$ and the time to commit myself to other employment opportunities as and when they turn up… without the $$$ from teaching I wouldn’t be working full time and wouldn’t be working in some of my current roles within professional sport. 

The work I have completed in the sports industry has been fairly vast (generally pretty rare as it is very hard to get a gig anywhere) example… AIS – track/sprint team, AIS – swimming, AIS winter sports program (this was awesome… spent all but about 3 weeks snowboarding… and getting paid… Bonus) I have and still work in the AFL, recently took on work with Melbourne Storm NRL, have worked in Rugby union, ACT academy, brumbies, ACTRU junior development, various local clubs across many sports generally with elite juniors or open grade player. Started TID and athlete testing with ACT/NSW AFL development squads this year…

Anyway the trick I have found is work your arse off… volunteer the shit out of your spare time and when your not volunteering… you better be kissing arse somewhere… seriously…. I have had jobs come about by turning up and offering my service at a sport/junior level I knew was well below what would normally be considered worthwhile and a few weeks in one of the kids pipes up and says my dad is blah blah blah… he works for ….. and a couple of week after that I’m working back in professional sport having met and developed new a professional relationship with someone worth knowing..

This as you can probably tell is only a tiny bit of what I have done and how I have done it… there are a few things I would have done differently if I had my time again, but its would still be lot of work… Nothing that comes easy is worth having apparently…