Ron Barassi, Australian footballer and coach
Ronald Dale Barassi Jr. (born 27 February 1936) is a former Australian rules football player, coach and media personality. Regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the game, Barassi was the first player to be inaugurated into the Australian Football Hall of Fame as a "Legend", and is one of three Australian rules footballers to be elevated to the same status in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

When Barassi was five years old, his father, Melbourne Football Club player Ron Barassi Sr., died in action at Tobruk during World War II. Barassi was determined to follow in his father's footsteps at Melbourne, and heavy lobbying by the club to recruit him resulted in the introduction of the father-son rule, still in use by the AFL. Barassi subsequently lived with Norm Smith, Melbourne's then-coach and a former teammate of his father. Under Smith's mentorship, Barassi pioneered the ruck rover position and appeared in six premiership-winning sides, two of which he captained. In 1964, in what has been called "the most audacious signing in league history", Barassi left Melbourne for a lucrative contract at Carlton. Retiring from playing in 1969, he coached Carlton to two premierships, including a record-breaking comeback in 1970 before what remains the largest crowd in football history; Barassi's famous half-time injunction to his men to play on from marks and handball at all costs came to be remembered as "the birth of modern football".Barassi retired from professional football in 1971, but was lured back two years later to coach North Melbourne. In 1981, after leading the club to its first two premierships, he returned to an ailing Melbourne, where he initiated the "Irish experiment": the recruitment of Gaelic footballers into Australian rules. His stint at Melbourne, followed by another at the Sydney Swans in 1993–95, proved vital in rebuilding those clubs as viable members of the competition.Barassi's coaching career was both successful and regarded by many as revolutionary. His clean record and passion for the game―exemplified by his campaigning for the establishment of a national club-level competition―has earned him a place as a celebrity and popular culture figure in Australia. He was named a Member of the Order of Australia in 1978, and in 1996 was selected in the AFL's Team of the Century as a ruck rover.