Rob Hess

Rob Hess (BA Hons, Monash; MA, Alberta; PhD, VicUni) is an Associate Professor at Victoria University. Rob’s scholarship has focused on the history of Australian Rules football.
His books on the subject include:

  • A National Game: The History of Australian Rules Football,
  • More Than a Game: An Unauthorised History of Australian Rules Football, and,
  • Play On! The Hidden History of Women’s Australian Rules Football.

A National Game won the ASSH Book Award in 2009 and Play On! won the ASSH Book Award in 2017.

The inconspicuous past is a common theme in Rob’s research. This theme is most apparent in the titles of his works that include words such as “hidden”,“secret” and “marginalised”. Rob’s theme of the inconspicuous past draws particular attention to the longstanding interest, and involvement, in Australian Rules football from women and the Chinese community. This theme also extends to Rob’s work on the history of disability sport in Victoria. Rob holds a senior position in professional sport history as the Academic Editor of the discipline’s largest journal, The International Journal of the History of Sport. In addition to his academic scholarship, Rob is deeply involved in community sport history: he is a member of the Western Bulldogs Football Club Heritage Committee, a member of Cycling Victoria’s History and Heritage Committee, and the honorary historian of the St Bede’s / Mentone Tigers
Amateur Football Club.

Rob served as President of the Australian Society for Sports History between
2011 and 2013