As part of National Careers Week, Diving Australia caught up with three members of our Alumni Network. The Network brings together former Diving Australia athletes, coaches and staff members in an effort to continue to build on the legacy and impact that diving has in Australian sport.

As members of the Network, Liz Jack, Michael Murphy, and Olivia Wright graciously volunteered their time to offer inside stories, tips, and advice on how to manage a successful career outside of the pool during and after sport.

These three alumni, representing three eras of Australian diving, have excelled both on the diving boards and in the board room. Their journeys offer a pathway for current and future generations of athletes when the time comes to embark on the next chapter of their careers.

Liz Jack

Liz Jack balanced her early diving career between her home state of Tasmania and the nearby Victoria. Jack’s crowning achievement as an athlete came in 1976 when she made the Australian Olympic Team for the Montreal Games. Jack was the youngest ever athlete selected to compete for Australia in diving at the time at seventeen-years-old.

Following her retirement from competition as an athlete, Jack moved to coaching and was instrumental in the success of 1984 Olympic Gold Medallist Sylvie Bernier of Canada while completing a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University. At the same Games, Jack coached Australian Olympian, and fellow Tasmanian native, Julie Kent.

In 1990, Jack returned to her home state as the director of the newly formed Tasmania Institute of Sport and has since functioned as director of Sport and Recreation Tasmania. In sport specific roles, Jack served as Competition Manager for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, and more recently was appointed to the Diving Australia Board of Directors. In a professional capacity, Jack now serves as the Executive Director of Libraries Tasmania.

“I used to glibly say if ‘you’re an athlete you have these skills like commitment, focus, goal setting, drive, determination, teamwork. All of those things that you can bring to whatever your future career is,’ but in the time I’ve had working in various different roles I think there are other skills that are even more important,” Jack said, “First and foremost it is the people skills.

“It is the ability to communication with people, to know what drives them, to know what motivates them, what gets them out of bed in the morning, what presses their buttons. Everybody is different.

“As a diving coach every athlete I had, had a different motivator, a different reason for being there, a different reason for wanting to achieve. If I didn’t know how to press those buttons, console them when they needed it, then I wasn’t going to have any success as a coach.

“I’ve found that in the business world it is exactly the same thing.”

Michael Murphy

Michael Murphy made his mark on Australian diving well before he moved into his role as Diving Australia Chairman. In the pool Murphy represented Australia at two Olympic Games in 1992 and 1996. At the 1994 Commonwealth Games, Murphy famously clinched gold medals in each of the 3m Springboard and 10m Platform events.

Outside of the pool Murphy received a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws with Honours from Bond University, before pursuing a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University on a Sir Robert Gordon Menzies Scholarship.

Murphy now works as a Managing Director with Bain Capital a global investment management firm where he leads Australia’s private equity team.

“One reflection that I have in that transition from sport into the next phase of life whether it be the world that I work in or anything else, is that it is very valuable to take a humble look at yourself,” Murphy said, “I have met a lot of athletes who have achieved at the highest levels and I think where it can be quite difficult is not having a realistic reflection of your skills and attributes.

“There are a lot of skills that take you to that level in sport that are relevant to thriving and succeeding in your next career, but there are a lot of skills, even basic skills, that you need to learn from scratch.

“When I started as an undergrad, the very first assignment that I had to do was double spaced. I hit enter twice after each line because I had no idea how to do it. That is how raw my skills were coming out of sport into the next career.

“Just recognising that there is a lot to learn and that’s exciting, understanding that there is a long career ahead and the more open you are to learning, the more options you will have in your future career.”

Olivia Wright

Olivia Wright grew up in Sydney were she first got her start in diving before moving to Brisbane where she secured a position with the Australian Institute of Sport program. In the pool Wright punched her ticket to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi where a strong showing with synchronised partner Jaele Patrick clinched her a bronze medal in the 3m Springboard Synchronised event.

Following her career as an athlete Wright graduated from the Queensland University of Technology with a Bachelor of Laws before pursuing a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from the College of Law.

Since then, Wright has worked at several law firms first in Sydney and now in Dublin where she functions as an Associate at McCann FitzGerald.

“If I could go back now to when I was an athlete, I think one piece of advice I would give myself is to understand that there is not only one way, to get the career you want and to get that career started,” Wright said, “I know from my own experience that you can go through a non-traditional route and it didn’t negatively affect my career at all.

“In some ways it has positively impacted my career.

“Particularly in a profession like law, or accounting, or medicine, there is sometimes a mentality that there is only one way to get there. I just fundamentally disagree with that.

“If you really want something there is no right or wrong way of getting there.

“I really stressed as an athlete about how I was going to start my career. It was a great source of anxiety for me. If I could look back now, I would tell myself just not to worry so much. If you really really want it, you’ll find a way.”