Peta Edebone is one of Australia’s greatest softball players. She joined the AIS/Australian women’s softball team in 1993 and went on to represent Australia 330 times, before retiring from professional softball in 2004.

In the course of her 12-year softball career, Peta competed at three world championships, winning a silver and bronze medal, and at three Olympic Games, claiming bronze medals at the Sydney 2000 Games (where she matched the then Olympic record of four home runs) and Atlanta 1996 Games, and a silver medal at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games (the same year she captained the Australian team). In 2002, she was named Australian Female Softballer of the Year.

Following her retirement from softball in 2004, Peta turned her focus to the organisation that she had worked for since 1990, and who had supported her throughout her softball career: the Australian Football League. She currently works as the AFL’s Total Player Payment and Player Contract Management Advisor, responsible for the control, registration and monitoring of all player contracts.

Peta’s job involves advising clubs on compliance to player rules, the AFL’s collective bargaining agreement and Total Player Payment thresholds. She also recently travelled with the AIS/Australian Football League Academy squad on its 2009 tour of South Africa.

Peta volunteers much of her time for community causes and organisations, including the RSPCA and the Australia Day Ambassador Program. In 2004 she was recognised for her work on behalf of asthma sufferers with her induction into the Asthma Victoria Hall of Fame. She was also included in the inaugural (2006) edition of the Who’s Who of Australian Women.

Despite the shift of her professional focus to AFL, Peta continues to be actively involved in softball and, in 2005, was appointed to the International Softball Federation Executive Council, Administrative Council, Athletes Commission, and Women and Sport Commission. Since 2007 she has assisted in the coaching of the Victorian open women’s team and, in 2008, was inducted into the Softball Australia Hall of Fame.