He was the leader of the pack at St Joseph's school in Mount Isa during the mid to late 1930s - and nothing changed for the rest of Bob Bax's life. If there was mischief afoot, he was up for it. But when a challenge presented itself, there was no one else you wanted leading you.

Like all halfbacks he was cheeky, but Baxie had a brain the envy of the top echelon of modern coaches. Wayne Bennett, who had played under him, sought his coaching advice and guidance until Bax's death - calling him 'my mentor, my critic, my coach and most importantly, my friend.'

Jack Gibson - considered ahead of his time, winning five premierships in the 70s and 80s - regarded Baxie as 'the greatest football brain' he had ever encountered.

Baxie was a man far ahead of his times - in how he treated his players and in his innovative thinking. He studied what motivated each of them and built a strong personal relationship with every single one.

"He was the first psychologist," former television commentator and Brothers first-grade player George Doniger said. "He could get people to do things that other coaches couldn't."

"The tricks that he pulled, the things he told players that they would believe. He could get into their mind and make them believe they could do things," legendary commentator John McCoy recalled. "He was an absolute coaching genius."

He coached Brothers and Norths from 1956–70, making 14 Grand Finals and winning nine premierships. He also coached Brisbane and Queensland sides.

Ironically, Baxie was born in the AFL state of South Australia - but his father Albert and mother Catherine moved to Mount Isa before he began school. It was here Baxie came under the tutelage of Vince Hore, enlisted by the sisters of St Joseph's to train their school team.

It was a good team, with Baxie steering the ship from halfback and a ginger-headed outside back seemingly scoring tries at will. Cocky McMahon went on to play for Australia - and though they eventually played against each other in Bulimba Cup competition, they remained firm friends.

His family were Catholics and with no secondary Catholic school in Mount Isa, Baxie finished his schooling as a boarder at St Teresa's Agricultural College, Abergowrie, near Ingham. Upon finishing school he began an electrical apprenticeship at Mount Isa Mines.

He had a couple of bouts in the ring, but Rugby League was his passion. During the war he and Cocky McMahon played for a Mines side in the reduced local competition.

At the conclusion of the war, Baxie married his childhood sweetheart Ishbel Fraser. He captained Mount Isa to the North Queensland B Grade Championship in 1946 and won the Heatley Award for Best and Fairest in the final.

McMahon had moved to Toowoomba and represented Queensland that year, encouraging Baxie to come down. After a week of bleak weather, Baxie packed his bags and called in at his parents' place in Brisbane. Former Australian centre Jack Reardon - by then a journalist - recommended Baxie to Past Brothers. In his first season he was judged the most improved back in the Brisbane competition.

A regular in Brothers' side, he began to hone his coaching skills with a season as captain-coach for Fitzroy in Rockhampton (1952) and Mitchell (1954). Brisbane Brothers made their first Grand Final since the war years in 1954 and appointed Baxie coach for the 1955 season. At the time he was still playing - pulling on reserve grade for the first half before replacing himself so he could prepare the A Grade team.

His first coaching gig was with Brothers in 1956, where he was fortunate to have champion Australian prop Brian Davies in his side. The Brethren were clearly the best team and defeated Western Suburbs 17–10 in the Grand Final.

The next year Brothers were even stronger, losing only one of 18 regular season games. Valleys failed to adhere to the script on Grand Final Day and beat Baxie's Brothers side 18–17 - the last Grand Final before Queensland Rugby League headquarters moved to Lang Park.

In the first Grand Final at Lang Park, Baxie used his psychological skills to engineer a dominant 22–7 victory.

"Before the Grand Final in 1958 all he did was abuse Brian Davies," Brothers' winger Noel Garvey said. "Baxie told him he hadn't played a decent game for Brothers the whole season - and that year he was captain-coach of Australia. We killed 'em."

Davies' teammates rallied behind him with one of the greatest displays ever by a club pack, pulverising the Valleys forwards.

After losing the 1959 decider to the Clive Churchill-coached Norths team, Baxie was dismissed by Brothers - with much conjecture as to why, given his success. His son Robert later affirmed the sacking was due to his father's objection to club officials entering the dressing room and interfering with his coaching.

Clive Churchill returned to Sydney after his one season in the north. Premiers Northern Suburbs promptly asked Baxie to coach them. He moved to the Devils and won the next five premierships.

In his eleven years as coach from 1960 to 1970, Baxie took Norths to nine Grand Finals, winning seven of them. It was a record never seen before nor since - and established his reputation as the master coach of his era.

Baxie formed a bond with his players and they knew they meant more to him than just wins and losses. His success was founded on building an exceptional team culture - one where he and his players grew to genuinely care about each other.

He knocked around with his players. They used to go to his house and play cards. After games, he and the players met at 'The House' in Nundah for a get-together - wives and girlfriends welcome. They'd talk about the game openly: what they should have done, what they didn't do.

"He looked after his players. He took a personal interest in their lives," his son Robert confirmed. "He built a great bond with his players."

Bill Pearson, the captain of Norths, felt he wasn't getting enough of the ball playing centre. He told Baxie he thought he should go to five-eighth. Baxie replied they would give it a go and see what Bill thought - and Bill ended up in the five-eighth position permanently.

When it came to training, Baxie was a fitness fanatic. Training nights started with 10 laps around the oval, then short-burst running, ball drills, and forwards and backs training separately. "When he spoke to players at training he was a master of giving clear explanations of what he wanted - and because all the players respected him, they took on board what he said."

The person always came first. When John Cleary returned from England after the 1963–64 Kangaroo Tour, recognising the sacrifice his wife Margaret had made, Baxie helped Cleary gain a £1,500 contract to coach the West End club in Townsville in 1964.

The legendary John Sattler finished the 1974 season with Western Suburbs and it was assumed the then 32-year-old would hang up the boots. Baxie - President of Norths - rang Sattler anyway.

"He asked me to come and have a season with Norths but I said no, I had made up my mind. But 'Baxy' wouldn't be deterred. He said: 'I'll leave it with you - we can't pay you any money, but we'd love to have you.'"

"I went to Norths and asked Baxy if he wanted me to sign anything. He said no - because my word was good enough. It was a wonderful season."

Baxie was from the old school and your word meant everything. In the time-honoured tradition of Baxie negotiations, signatures went on the back of beer coasters - while a beer was shared.

In 1969 Baxie went outside the box to take advantage of a rule change lifting the points for a field goal from one to two. Barry Spring was 26 and had never played a game of Rugby League when the Norths President turned up at his house.

"The next day I turned up at Bishop Park and he threw me some balls and said kick them. So I kicked ten field goals from over halfway."

Spring's lack of rugby league experience was made up for by his booming and accurate boot - and Baxie immediately saw the potential.

Like all good Baxie plans, it involved a trip to the pub to talk details. Baxie invited him to the Exhibition Hotel, thinking it would be lowkey. The Brothers' President Doc Alroe happened to be there - chatting warmly to Spring about hoping it all worked out - with no idea who he was. The secret was still safe.

"Baxy wrote down $100 sign-on and then a certain amount after five games, ten games, fifteen games. I said Mayne offered me a $200 sign-on so Baxy upped it to $200. It was all written down on the back of a beer coaster that I signed - and I was a league player."

Spring kicked 35 field goals across the season - including four against Valleys in round one, five against Brothers in round 14, and the 35th and last in Norths' 14–2 Grand Final win over Valleys. Thirty-five field goals was more than South Sydney and Australian champion Eric Simms ever managed in a single season.

Spring's range and accuracy drove opponents crazy and opened up avenues for Norths to attack. The Grand Final was a breeze - opponents Valleys failed to score a try.

"I loved playing at Lang Park. We just didn't get crowds like that in AFL in Brisbane at the time. 35,000 at Lang Park was just fantastic. I just remember Baxy saying, 'You just play your part.' We had so many good players in their fifth or sixth Grand Final - you didn't have to worry about them. Just do your job."

Spring's memories of Baxie sum up his coaching philosophy simply and completely.

"Baxy used to say - you're not the best team I ever coached, but you're the happiest. Something in that. Happy teams win."

Photo Credit: Norths Devils Rugby League Football Club

After retiring from club coaching at the end of 1970, Baxie coached Queensland in 1971 and 1972. As usual he brought an innovative approach - with QRL supremo Senator Ron McAuliffe a close ally.

In January 1971, McAuliffe obtained money from a consortium of sponsors to hold an intensive, live-in training camp at Lang Park. For two months, 20 players lived in the spartan Lang Park dressing rooms under the old Frank Burke Stand - sleeping on camp beds, eating what was dished up to them.

Bruce Hatcher, later QRL chairman, was captain of the Intensive Training Squad.

"Sunday was meant to be our rest day, but they took us to the Gold Coast for beach running and PE. We would run along the beach until fitness instructor Col O'Brien told us to enter the surf - up to our knees - and continue to run and sprint."

"We were introduced to psychological and blood testing every few days to measure effort and health. There were lectures by specialist doctors, and even the teaching of etiquette - including table manners, table setting and dining with a female companion, as well as public speaking."

It was the first time in Australia that a body contact sport had grouped players together under medical and psychological supervision. The medical tests showed four players were natural left-handers who had been mainly taught to use their right. Norths' winger Bob Peut discovered he was short-sighted - contact lenses recommended.

One of the players in camp was a young Wayne Bennett, from Toowoomba.

"We had been through so much together. Five or six blokes had lost their jobs because of the camp, and we were sick of the general attitude of outsiders who thought it was an easy, relaxing affair."

Bennett went on to play for Queensland and Australia that year. Greg Veivers captained Australia in 1977. Wayne Stewart played for Australia in 1972. Nine others went on to play for Queensland - and several of Baxie's students went on to successful coaching careers: Des Morris, John Lang and, of course, Bennett.

As a coach he was an innovator who introduced the compilation of player performance statistics, pioneered fitness testing and devised a well-disguised scissors move that bewildered opposition defences and resulted in Norths scoring many tries.

And he was never one to sugar-coat things. With the club suffering a number of lean seasons in the late 70s, Bax returned to coaching - but things got worse and the team finished with the wooden spoon.

Baxie signed future Test halfback Mark Murray from Millmerran on the Darling Downs that year, but it was a phone call over the ditch that put the club on the path back to success.

Graham Lowe was coaching the Otahuhu Leopards in Auckland and had led the side to back-to-back premierships in 1977 and 1978. At the end of that season he received a call from Baxie.

"Baxy asked me if I was interested in coming to Brisbane and coaching Norths," Lowe remembered. "It was an exciting but also strange conversation - because Bob spent about five minutes telling me how difficult the job was going to be, because they had just finished last in the Brisbane comp and had also lost a number of their best players."

Lowe grabbed the opportunity. In 1980 Norths won a memorable Grand Final victory. Lowe went on to coach Manly in the NRL and the Queensland State of Origin side.

Part of the bonding at Norths always revolved around horse racing. When Baxie got any tips he spread them around to everyone. A conservative and astute punter, in the late 1950s Bax set up as an illegal starting-price bookmaker. He obtained a licence to operate lawfully in 1965 and fielded at the trots - but lost his licence following the second of three convictions (1961, 1976 and 1978) for offences related to his illicit book.

After the Fitzgerald Inquiry into political and police corruption (1987–89), Baxie and other SP bookmakers were charged with paying protection money to corrupt police - but the charges were subsequently dropped.

In 1997, Bax became the first person disqualified under the new mobile phone rules - outed for two years by Queensland Principal Club stewards after being caught transmitting prices off-course at Ipswich.

In 1985 McAuliffe quit the QRL and Ross Livermore became managing director and CEO, with Baxie's protégé Wayne Bennett replacing him as State Director of Coaching. Baxie had held the post from 1981 to '85 - and during that time continued to operate his SP bookie business.

There were only two telephone lines into Lang Park, and with Baxie constantly on the phone juggling his two roles, members of the public found it very hard to get through to buy tickets or seek information.

In the early 1970s he published a short-lived magazine called Queensland's Rugby League Review, and his rugby league column in Brisbane's Sunday Mail ran for many years.

He was highly regarded for his administrative skills - a member of Norths' management committee from 1961 to 1982 and President of the club across four separate tenures. He was honoured with life membership in 1970.

In 1992, Baxie was part of a six-man panel selected by Rugby League Week to name an all-time greatest Australian team for the game's 85th anniversary. On Norths' 75th anniversary in 2008, he was named coach of the club's greatest team.

In 2022, when the Brisbane Rugby League Team of the Century was chosen by the QRL History Committee, Wally Lewis was named five-eighth and skipper - but the nod for coach went to Baxie.

He passed away in 2000, aged 74, after a long illness. Norths named an award for "Player Most Likely to Succeed" the Bob Bax Award in his honour.

He was noted for his witticisms - once remarking of a speedy but not-very-intelligent winger: "Flies like a jet plane - unfortunately, no pilot."

Though short in stature, he was a giant of the game. No other coach in Rugby League history has achieved the level of sustained success in club football that Baxie did.

His record of coaching nine Grand Final teams in a row and winning nine premierships in fifteen years is likely to never be broken.