Pam Glossop – hockey

Pam is a true believer of the saying 'one door closes and another door opens'. She was coming to the end of a 10-year career as a player with the Australian hockey team when the AIS hockey unit was established and was fortunate to be appointed as the women's hockey coach.

Pam held that position for 10 years and then following a change in leadership at the AIS realised she needed a career change and took a job with local government – a steep educational learning curve.

Pam left local government after 20 months to take on the role of Executive Officer for the WA Touch Association, a position she held for five years. Once again she felt the need for a change and decided that a stint with the Department of Sport and Recreation would be a good route to follow. After five years with DSR, Pam realised that her passion lies working with State Sporting Associations and so she took on the role as Executive Director with Women’s Golf WA and has recently accepted the position as Chief Executive Office for Bowls WA.

For Pam it was a natural transition from playing to coaching to administration.

Inspirational aspects of your career

As a player: Being selected in two Olympic teams (1980 boycott and 1984) and being the captain of Australia for a period of time.

As a coach: Having an impact on the development of young talented hockey players and seeing them reach their potential and achieve their goals. Coaching the Australian under-18 team.

As an administrator: Providing the necessary administrative support to sport from grass roots through to the elite to ensure all of the community has the opportunity to participate in sport.  In particular, the service to regional WA by the State Sporting Association is a key priority.

Defining moments

As a player, Pam always had very clear goals and would undertake whatever was necessary to achieve her goals.  In the early days of national representation Pam was “dropped” from the Australian team and from then on she made sure she would do whatever was in her power to ensure selection.

As a coach, while Pam had ambition, it was not as clearly articulated and though she enjoyed the decade of coaching, it was clearly not a passion and realised she really enjoyed the administrative duties behind the role of the coach. The era when Ric Charlesworth came into the hockey program and Pam left was definitely a turning point and one where she had to set some new goals to pursue a career in sports administration.

Overcoming major obstacles

As a player, Pam was fortunate to have a smooth path with no major obstacles or injuries. If there was an obstacle it would have been the financial sacrifices, as during most of her playing time the trips were self funded, with most assistance coming from fundraising.

As a coach she experienced a few obstacles. Pam had a burning ambition to coach the Australian under-21 team but due to what she perceived as political decisions she was never appointed to this position. As this was out of her control, Pam chose to continue coaching the AIS athletes and develop them to their full potential so they would have the best chance of selection in national teams.

As an administrator Pam has never faced any hurdles but has undertaken further study and education to keep up to date with current trends and information.

Influential people

When Pam first started playing hockey, she was coached by Mary Nairn, who was a legend in Queensland hockey.  She was a strong personality, an Australian player, a coach of both men’s and women’s teams at both State and “A” Grade level and certainly “no nonsense”.  Pam can still remember her first words to them as a group of young 10-year-olds – “If you giggle I am not going to coach you”.  They didn’t giggle but we certainly had a lot of fun.

Mary was also a great believer in developing a high level of basic skills and it was a full season of learning the skills before they were given the chance to play a real game. Mary’s strong belief in this area is one which Pam totally supports and advocates.

Since then a lot of people have had strong influences on Pam’s career, especially her fellow players and all of her coaches.

As a coach, Brian Glencross had the most influence over her coaching direction. Brian was pedantic in every area and taught Pam to leave no stone unturned and to always look outside the square to look for better and improved methods of coaching.

As an administrator, Pam doesn’t single out any one person who’s had significant influence on her career but would openly say that it is the networking and sharing of information with other fellow administrators that ensures she’s able to lead the sporting organisation to the best of her ability.

Future ambitions

Pam continues to love the work she’s doing and at this stage of life she’s not looking to make any real changes, but to ensure she continues to learn and develop her own skills in administration.  Pam hopes to achieve this by undertaking courses such as the Australian Institute of Directors Course and networking with fellow administrators.

Pam currently is a volunteer board member with Hockey WA and is also on the board of the Western Australian Sport Centre Trust (ministerial appointment). The Trust oversees the management of Challenge Stadium, Arena Joondalup, Perth Velodrome and the Motorplex in Kwinana.

• Sport Aerobics judge
• Outdoor Recreation
• Coaching
• Women's coaching
• Representative organisation
• Trails