A law degree as well as subsequent qualifications in sport science and performance coaching make Fiona Semple an ideal fit for her new job as an elite athlete support manager.
Strip all that away, however, and there is a more visceral reason why the former Scotland hockey international is so buoyant about getting stuck into this latest challenge.
“I’m just an absolute sports fanatic,” admits the Bearsden-based athlete. “Working with and understanding a high-performing sports system has always been a driver of mine. So from that point of view it’s really exciting.”
To say this has been a period of extensive transition in the 30-year-old’s life would be an understatement. On the career front she has left two jobs, one a project officer for Winning Students at the University of Stirling and the other a Performance Lifestyle Advisor for the English Institute of Sport, to take on this new position with the British Elite Athletes Association.
It is a wide-ranging role, one that tries to provide solutions for the many issues facing sports stars at the top level, a vast spectrum that stretches from welfare and wellbeing to administrative, legal and selection matters.
“The new job fits perfectly in terms of my background,” she explains. “I’d done a law degree, a sports science degree and a masters in coaching which all helps.
“There are so many areas where athletes could reach out to us for one-to-one support. Then there’s athlete engagement, delivering workshops and getting to know each sport and how we can support them. And then there’s athlete representation, recruiting reps and helping athletes have their voices heard on different topics.
“Any athlete within the Olympic or Paralympic programmes can contact us for support. You’re assigned between nine and 12 sports and those are yours to build relationships with.”
There have been other recent seismic changes in her life. Semple has decided to call it a day on her eight-year Scotland hockey career and moved into a new role as head coach of GHK. She has not hung up her stick entirely but admits her playing days are now secondary to what she can achieve as a coach.
“It felt fairly natural to call it a day with Scotland at this time,” she says. “It was primarily because of family but there were a few other reasons.
“The squad is moving in a different direction now and focusing more on youth. There are some really talented players coming through so it was the right time for me to go.
“There were many good times, including my first European Championships in 2015 when we opened against England in London. But there were highs and lows. We had some pretty miserable training camps over the years! And not going to the Commonwealth Games was an obvious disappointment.
“But on the whole I can say that what I managed with Scotland surpassed anything I ever thought I would.
“I’m enjoying my new role now as a head coach. This is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve been coaching ever since I was 15 and been building towards this all throughout my 20s.
“My intention was not to be playing but some of the team have limited availability because of work so I’ve played once purely based on numbers. So I’ll dip in and out. I could go back to playing regularly one day but I felt just now that I needed a break physically and mentally with so much else going on.”
Semple’s obsession with sport runs in the family, with two-year-old son Freddie already at his happiest with a stick in his hand or a ball at his feet.
“He knows that mummy goes off to hockey almost every day and he’s obsessed with it,” she laughs. “But he’s obsessed with all ball sports already. He loves tennis, football and hockey so we’ll see how that develops.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here