Holly Ferling: A Dual-Career Athlete

As Holly Ferling pursued more media commitments, people assumed she was heading towards retirement. In truth, her off-field work is simply more visible, and she’s no different to most of her teammates who are also juggling cricket and work.

“I'm actually a dual career athlete like a lot of my teammates, my job just looks very different compared to everyone else's”, says Holly.

Holly has represented Australia in all formats, played over 60 WBBL matches, and played WNCL for over ten years. She has also gained a degree in journalism, worked in a commercial radio newsroom for three years, and now, works as a presenter for Channel 7, all while continuing her cricket career.

Holly found her love for media after first studying to become a PE teacher.

“I studied teaching and then realised that I really enjoyed the media space”, she says.

Although, while she enjoyed working in a commercial radio newsroom, she hated “how surface level it was”, which when combined with her passion for storytelling, was one of her main motivators for starting the podcast.

“I thought with my skillset – I love story telling – it’s the thing I love the most when I do commentating. It’s something I get to do that with Channel Seven for 20 days of the summer, but what about all the other days?”, Holly says.

While still having a significant impact for the ACT Meteors in the WNCL and plying her trade in the WBBL, Holly is also making waves in the media landscape. Her podcast, ‘The All-Rounders', is showcasing dual-career athletes just like Holly, those that are balancing professional cricket and sport with other work commitments. “For me I think it's showing how many people are doing this dual career balance, and that it looks different to everyone”, she says.

A big theme of the podcast is humanising conversations with athletes, breaking down barriers and showing that the athletes out on the wicket are also people off the field.

“I wanted to push my story-telling towards that side of things because it's something I love talking to people about, what they do away from sport, and it’s often an angle we miss in the media just because of the immediacy of games and what's newsworthy at any given point, as opposed to; when can we actually sit down and talk about something that athletes are truly passionate about off the field?”, she says.

Her guests so far have included Ash Gardner (Ash Gardner Foundation), Georgia Redmayne (doctor), Sophie Day (artist) and Paddy Dooley (lawyer).

“Every single person has had a very different pathway to their careers on the field, just as they have off the field, and by destigmatizing and showing how many people are actually doing this, we have a way to show all the young kids out there, but also show the current athletes at the moment, you can be professional and still excel in something off the field. That in itself allows you to be this all-round human being that’s well setup to achieve anything you want to at any given point in your life.” Holly says.

Holly has had plenty of feedback from her peers, which she has found positive for herself, but is also stoked that people are seeing these athletes, who are both teammates and opponents, in a different context.

One of Holly’s biggest learnings from her newest media venture has helped in navigating the dual-career path, and she wants to help people in similar positions.

For Holly, it’s almost been therapeutic in a way, listening to athletes at the top of their at the top of their game talk about their strategies as to how they juggle things. Speaking on her own experience being an athlete, she has loved discovering that there are so many other people that have gone through similar challenges, fears and feelings, and talking about these themes is something that is particularly important to the podcast.

Holly credited the connection piece that her Player Development Manager (PDM) brings, allowing her to network across the cricket and even broader sporting landscape. She also spoke on a get-together that was held in Canberra with the ACT Meteors, Canberra Capitals (WNBL), and Canberra United (A-League Women), “thanks to the funding from the ACA, we organised a catch-up for all the girls... it was so cool to be able to network with other athletes and talk about the different challenges we’ve all had”.

In terms of what to expect in the future from ‘The All-Rounders', Holly just wants to “keep being nice and consistent with it”. With plenty of exciting guests in the pipeline, keep your eyes and ears peeled for fortnightly episodes.

“When you go to a workshop or something or you hear a guest speaker and you go ‘I wish I recorded that whole thing’, because I feel like I could listen to that four times over and pick up something different. At least with podcasts it's there to keep going back to, and I have no doubt I'm going to be listening back to some of the guests I've already had.”

You can listen to ‘The All-Rounders' wherever you get your podcasts, and follow along with any updates/posts on Instagram @theallounderspodcast.