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Angela Pippos
“I see the women of AFLW as the
modern day suffragists as they
have stared convention in the
face and won. That’s after a long
period of ridicule and being made
to feel like oddities and unnatural
for wanting to play the game.”
“The word equality is now used in
conversations around sport – that
sounds like a really small thing, but for
sport it’s big, because for so many years
you couldn’t even mention equality
in the same sentence as sport.”
For Angela, these changes have also
seen the return of her optimistic
and invincible nine-year-old self,
and her belief that it is possible to
change the world.
Angela has always loved sport.
Preferring running shoes over pointe
shoes, she would disappear from
ballet class to watch netball played on
nearby courts. She was very close to
her brother Chris, so when he began
to learn Aussie Rules Football, she
also became besotted with the game.
“We took stats for each other’s
games. We really were obsessed
with it, and after we had played our
respective sports, we would go to
Norwood oval and watch Norwood
play,” she said.
It was at University that Angela
discovered other passions, including
12
THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
feminism. She became involved
in student politics, activism and
the student newspaper, On Dit. It
was through these activities she
met fellow students Natasha Stott
Despoja AO (former politician),
Annabel Crab (Australian political
journalist, commentator and
television host), and Samantha
Maiden (journalist).
“It must have been second year and
I was studying feminist history and
I just loved it. Learning about the
different waves of feminism and the
role that South Australian women
played in suffrage really inspired me.
“And then you’re hanging around
with Annabel and Natasha, a really
cool group of switched on, feisty
women. I was hooked and it gave me
a really solid platform to head out
into the world,” Angela said.
Completing honours in politics
at the University of Adelaide, and
then a Bachelor of Journalism at the
University of South Australia, Angela
felt ready to take on the world.
The plan was to become a political
journalist working in Canberra, but
her path took a different turn.
Angela became a researcher for
ABC Adelaide’s 7.30 Report. When
the show was axed, she moved into
the newsroom as a general reporter.
Because of her good sporting
knowledge, she started to cover more
sport than anything else, and people
started to notice her talent.
Melbourne’s head of ABC News
asked her to apply for a specialist
sports journalist position. It was too
good an opportunity to turn down,
so she applied, got the job and moved
to Melbourne in 1997.
Angela loved her work, but as one
of only a handful of women in
sports journalism at that time, she’d
underestimated the challenges she
would encounter.
“I was often the only woman at a
media conference, so that came with
the pressure of feeling like I was
representing all women. So I didn’t
want to let the team down by asking
