Prof Max Howell AO

Max Howell was Wallaby number 339 and a child of the Depression in Sydney in the 1930s. It wasn’t until he reported to the trials for his first primary schools representative team that he played in anything other than bare feet. And the first time he ate at a restaurant, stayed in a hotel and flew in a plane was with the Australian rugby team in the 1940s.

Having debuted as a 19-year-old, he played five Test matches and 27 non-Test matches for Australia from 1946-48. It was a career which, in his own inimitable and self-effacing fashion, he may have described as “pretty ordinary”.

In fact, he was anything but ordinary. He was an extraordinary sporting personality. A much-admired educator and author, and one of Australia’s foremost sporting historians.

Having retired from rugby at 22, he enjoyed a glittering 20-year academic career abroad before settling in Brisbane in 1981 and serving as the Foundation Chair and first Professor of Human Movement Studies at University of Queensland.

Author of more than 50 books, he was awarded an Order of Australia in 2003 “for service to education as a pioneer in the development of sports studies and sports science as academic disciplines, both in Australia and overseas, and to the study of sports history”.

He was named a Statesman of Australian Rugby in 2012, but perhaps his greatest legacy was an overwhelming contribution to the Queensland Sport Hall of Fame. And after his passing in February 2014 aged 86 it was entirely appropriate that he now joins a body about which he was undeniably the greatest authority.