Ron Barassi - Public Life

Public Life

Since retiring from football coaching, Barassi remains a prominent Australian rules football celebrity and a figure of popular culture.

In 1996, he became an inaugural inductee in the Australian Football Hall of Fame, one of few former greats to be bestowed the honour of the Legend category. He is also is one of only three Australian rules footballers recognised as a Legend of Australian Sport in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, alongside Leigh Matthews and Ted Whitten.

He has also been involved in grassroots football development and has been an advocate for the development of the game internationally, particularly in South Africa. Reflecting this, Barassi has lent his name to the Barassi International Australian Football Youth Tournament.

He is a republican.

More recently, he was one of the last runners in the Queen's Baton Relay for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, being held in Melbourne, Australia between 15 and 26 March. His section of the relay, run on 15 March, involved taking the Baton from a series of pontoons in the middle of the Yarra River onto shore. It was handed to him by David Neitz, captain of the Melbourne Football Club (the team with which Barassi has been long associated). This was accomplished by having Barassi walk on a pontoon that was submerged just beneath the surface of the water, giving the impression that Barassi was 'walking on water'.

Robert Helpmann's 1964 ballet The Display includes a lengthy football sequence for which Helpmann recruited Barassi to coach the male dancers in Australian rules. The frontman of satirical Melbourne band TISM went under the pseudonym Ron Hitler-Barassi. Barassi disliked the reference, saying "My father was killed by Hitler's men in Tobruk so you can imagine my displeasure." Artist Lewis Miller won the 2000 "Sporting Archibald" for his portrait of Barassi, which was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Barassi has appeared in the Specky Magee books and was mentioned several times in episodes of the television show Kingswood Country. He was one of the first footballers to have his own football clinic on television and during the 60s he also launched his popular "Ron Barassi" footy boots.

After the second week of the 2006 AFL Finals, with the four remaining teams all being non-Victorian, with Victorians reeling from their recent weakness, Barassi controversially called for an inquiry to unearth the reason Victoria was trailing in the AFL, despite the state giving birth to the national competition.

In late 2006, he became a Sport Australia Hall of Fame member.

The best player in the Under 17 International Rules Series is awarded the Ron Barassi Medal.

Barassi was the subject of a series 2 episode of Who Do You Think You Are?.

On 6 June 1978, Barassi was named a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of service to the sport of Australian Rules football. On 24 October 2000, he was awarded the Australian Sports Medal.