The Queensland sports stars who have made a career in radio
From Susie O’Neill to Greg Martin, Jonathan Brown and newcomer Leisel Jones, we take a look at the Queensland sporting greats who successfully transitioned to a career in radio
QLD News
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A job on radio has become somewhat of a rite of passage for Queensland’s charismatic sport stars.
As champion swimmer Leisel Jones prepares to join Triple M’s The Rush Hour, a seat previously occupied by Libby Trickett, The Courier-Mail has taken a look back at the sporting greats who have made a successful second career in radio, and how they got there.
Mediaweek editor James Manning said radio programmers searching for new talent looked for people with profile and stories to tell that would resonate with local audiences – and sport was a natural fit in Queensland.
“Former sports stars often fill the need because they have a public profile and have a decade or more of competition and public life to draw on for content,” he said.
“Finding the right talent is not easy. Susie O’Neill is almost a reluctant radio star, but surrounded by talented colleagues and a huge audience on a market-leading station, she has made the transition from a guest to an integral part of the program.
“Similarly with Marto and Spida (Everitt), their radio careers have now arguably eclipsed their achievements on their respective football fields.
“One essential in radio is the need to be authentic, something that sports stars easily deliver. People with a showbiz background not so much.”
LEISEL JONES
Triple M drive show The Rush Hour
Leisel Jones is the latest sport star to accept the lure of radio.
The champion swimmer is set to join Triple M’s new local drive show The Rush with Leisel, Liam and Dobbo, airing across Brisbane and the Gold Coast from January 17.
Jones swam in the 2000 Olympic Games at 15 and became the first Australian swimmer to compete at four Olympic Games, winning a total nine medals, before retiring in late 2012.
Similarly to other athletes she wasn’t sure what to do in retirement.
She appeared on reality series I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! as well as The All New Monty for charity on Channel 7. She is also studying a psychology degree and released a book.
She had done weekend sports reading on ABC Brisbane where she learnt how to panel a radio show, and it was commentating for Channel 7’s broadcast of the recent Tokyo Olympics that motivated her to throw her hat into the ring for the job on Triple M.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I finished swimming. I always wanted to work in media but there’s not a lot of jobs. You don’t automatically get a job,” she said.
“I guess after the Olympics and doing the commentary … I was like, I love doing this, I love talking about it and it’s not as scary as it needs to be; really it’s just having a chat and connecting with listeners on the other side and just sharing your stories.”
SUSIE O’NEILL
Nova 106.9 breakfast’s Ash, Luttsy & Susie
Madame butterfly Susie O’Neill might not have been a personality tipped to transition to radio but she’s found herself among the most successful.
The eight-time Olympic medallist – a golden girl at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 – has just finished her third year as a full-time co-host of Nova’s breakfast show in Brisbane.
She admits she was petrified of doing interviews during her swimming career and was hesitant transitioning to radio, first joining Nova in 2013 as a fill-in sports reader.
After proving popular with listeners, Nova bosses eventually convinced O’Neill to appear on the breakfast show full time at the beginning of 2019, joining veteran team Ashley Bradnam, Kip Wightman and David Lutteral.
The show has won 16 out of a total 21 radio surveys since she joined full time.
With Wightman leaving the show recently, O’Neill’s spotlight on the show will increase in 2022.
“I felt like I shouldn’t be there,” O’Neill said at the end of the 2020.
“There have been quite a few times where I have wanted to quit over the seven years, a lot, especially in the early days.”
“Sometimes I thought it’d be easier to not do anything else because whatever else I do in life feels like it’s never going to be as good as my swimming career, so it’s hard to try other things because you always feel like you’ll never actually be very good.”
“Quite a few times I’d be like ‘I don’t want to do it anymore’, but they keep talking me around to keep going and I have less and less of those moments.”
GREG ‘MARTO’ MARTIN
Triple M’s The Big Breakfast
While he was an undoubted Queensland rugby favourite, Greg “Marto” Martin’s radio career has now eclipsed that on the field.
Martin was a star of the Queensland Reds and earned nine caps for the Wallabies in 1989 and 1990 before retiring from the game in 1992.
He was known to commentate as he got the ball and so after he retired he naturally wound up working part-time on Fox Sports while also starting his own building company.
He fell into broadcasting completely by chance when he renovated the home of then Triple M breakfast host Dean Miller.
“Dean was one of our finest all-time clients because he used to often bring beer home for us — light beer of course — and we’d have a yarn,” Martin once said.
The pair hatched a plan over a few of those beers to begin a rugby union segment on the station and Martin subsequently landed the slot as co-host for Blood, Sweat and Beers, which was broadcast live from the Gabba on Saturday.
By the end of 2001 Martin was recruited for the breakfast show when the station sacked then host Sammy Power.
He presented with Lisa Sheehan and cricketer Greg “Fatcat” Ritchie and soon after wound up his building company to make room for his media commitments.
“Somehow, they offered me a wonderful chance to do this instead of building,’’ he said at the time. “So far, so good, but I haven’t sold the ute, just in case anything goes wrong.’’
Nothing ever went wrong. Martin is still the co-host of Triple M’s The Big Breakfast.
He’s sat beside a revolving chair of comedians and broadcasters, and now is part of a duo with Margaux Parker – who herself came from a sporting background courtesy of her husband, former NRL star Corey Parker.
BEN HANNANT
Sea FM breakfast’s Bianca, Dan & Ben
Ben Hannant is an example of a sport star who never had to worry about what he would do in retirement.
In November 2016 the decorated prop confirmed injury had forced him to retire from the North Queensland Cowboys.
The following day he announced he was joining Gold Coast radio, having signed onto the breakfast team at Hit90.9 alongside Dan Anstey and Heather Maltman for 2017.
It was a chance to settle his family back home on the Gold Coast, where Hannant grew up, and he has been on the airwaves ever since, now with Bianca Dye in place of Maltman.
Hannant is a two-time NRL premiership winner, with the Broncos in 2006 and the Cowboys in 2015, and represented both Queensland and Australia in his 12 season NRL career.
JONATHAN BROWN
Nova 100 breakfast’s Chrissie, Sam & Browny
Jonathan Brown made a seamless transition from football to a career in radio.
The Brisbane AFL legend has commanded a coveted breakfast radio job in Melbourne since he moved down south to join Nova 100’s Chrissie Swan and Sam Pang in January 2016.
At the time Brown had been cutting his teeth at Nova in Brisbane.
On the field, his career was punctuated with three AFL Premierships, three Brisbane Lions Club Champion Awards, two All-Australian births and Coleman Medal.
Following a concussion during a game in 2014, Brown retired from the game.
His media career, though, was already underway as a regular guest panellist on The AFL Footy Show, while he had often appeared on Nova Brisbane’s Ash, Kip & Luttsy breakfast show during his career.
He regularly filled in for the team during holiday breaks, and in February 2015 was part of Nova’s Saturday breakfast show.
He was picked up by Nova in Melbourne by the end of the year and the breakfast show went to No. 1 one year after Brown made the move south.
He later revealed he would have become a coach had it not been for a chance conversation with former Nova Brisbane boss Jay Walkerden.
“Jay Walkerden pulled me into his office one day and said ‘what are you going to do past football?’,” the former Brisbane Lions captain told Confidential.
“It was actually the first time I had ever been asked that. I said ‘I’ll probably just coach like everyone else’ but he said ‘I want you to have a crack at radio’.”
SAM THAIDAY
Nova 106.9’s Thank God It’s Thaiday!
Similarly to Brown, Thaiday was picked out during his career as a radio fill-in.
Thaiday played 16 seasons for the Brisbane Broncos, won two Dally M medals as the best second rower in the game and represented both Queensland and Australia before he retired in 2018
Thanks to former Nova boss Jay Walkerden, the NRL larrikin made regular appearances on Nova 106.9 during his playing career, which led to his own weekend show Thank God It’s Thaiday! which he presented alongside Katie Mattin and Kimberley Busteed.
His wife Rachel Thaiday often filled in on the show, which ran for a number of years towards the end of his career and after his retirement in 2018, before the show eventually concluded in 2020.
He now hosts a podcast We Are Human with Walkerden’s podcasting company Podshape.
PETER EVERITT
92.5 Triple M breakfast’s Bridge, Spida & Flan
Peter “Spida” Everitt was an AFL star known for his colourful and outspoken ways as much as his on-field success.
So it was little surprise that the former AFL ruckman ended up with a TV and radio career in retirement.
His career spanned 16 years, three clubs and 327 games before he retired from the game in 2008 and eventually made his way up to Queensland.
He hit the airwaves on The Home Straight with Scott Sattler on Friday afternoons and the success on that show eventually landed him the gig with the 92.5 Gold FM breakfast crew, joining the team of Richard Fowler and Bridget Daley on the Gold Coast in January 2011.
“I’ve even been practising getting up at 3am,’’ he joked at the time.
“While I’ll continue to present The Home Straight with Scott Sattler on Fridays, I’ve always wanted to be able to work in breakfast radio.”
Everitt has enjoyed success on the show ever since, and will soon welcome new co-host Ali Plath with Daley recently exiting the show.
Everitt also produced a successful caravanning travel TV show, Great Australian Doorstep, with his wife Sheree.
LIBBY TRICKETT
Triple M’s The Rush Hour
Swimming champion Libby Trickett enjoyed a relatively short stint on the airwaves from 2017 to 2018.
Trickett was a decorated Olympian with four gold medals across three Summer Games by the time she retired from the sport in 2013.
She later admitted she struggled financially during that time, saying it was “quite confronting” how quickly her income evaporated. She and husband Luke were forced to sell their Brisbane home that year.
Trickett did a lot of public speaking at the time, which she said didn’t come naturally to her.
After welcoming her first daughter in 2016, Trickett inked a deal in early 2017 with Triple M Brisbane for a new drive show with Luke Bradnam and Ben “Dobbo” Dobbin, set to air in Brisbane and the Gold Coast
She put expanding her family on hold, saying the opportunity was too good to pass up.
Trickett welcomed her second daughter in early 2018 and by the middle of the year decided to resign from The Rush Hour show to focus on her family.
She was nominated for ‘‘best newcomer’’ at the annual Australian Commercial Radio Awards on month later.
Now a mother of three, Trickett has released a memoir, is studying a Bachelor of Counselling and has also recently launched a podcast.
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