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Growing up in Victoria, Bobby Ross was a multi-sport athlete, playing high school rugby, basketball and soccer, as well as baseball outside school. He was part of an extraordinary 1st XV at St. Michaels University School that went 14-0 in his final year and was the Vancouver Island Single A basketball MVP on a championship team.
Shortly after graduation, he was selected to the Canadian Junior Baseball Team and competed in the World Junior Championships in 1987, batting .376 as Canada won the Bronze medal. A college baseball scholarship took him to Washington State for a year, but rugby lured him home, where he played for the University of Victoria (UVic) and captained the Canadian Junior Team to Wales in 1988. In his first game for UVic against UBC in the famous "Boot" rivalry, he stroked a 55m drop goal at the death to win the game!
First capped in Victoria at inside centre against Ireland in 1989 at 20 years of age, Bobby went on to become one of the finest rugby players ever to play for Canada. He was capped 57 times between 1989 and 2003 and, throughout his playing years, he was a prodigious kicker of punts, drop kicks, conversions and penalty goals, scoring 421 test points which ranked him as Canada's third all-time scorer. On retirement, he was ranked 14th all-time in international rugby scoring. A versatile player, he was capped in the centre, wing and fullback positions but spent the majority of his career at fly half, where he read the game beautifully.
Bobby began his rugby career with the Castaways and, during his UVic years, was l989 Junior Varsity Athlete of the Year. He played with the famed James Bay Athletic Association through six Island and four Provincial titles and was four-time club MVP. He played for both Junior and Senior Crimson Tide and Team BC. Against Wales in 1997, a 56m drop goal at the opening kickoff plus a try in that game earned him a professional contract with Cardiff in the Welsh Premier League, playing in the European (Heineken) Cup, and helping pioneer Canadians in the European game. An injury in the Welsh Cup final ended his pro career but Bobby continued playing domestically and for Canada.
He captained the Canadian Under 19, Under 21 and Senior Men's teams and was once capped for all three in the same year. He represented Canada in three World Cups (1995, 1999, 2003), set the Canadian record for drop goals that still stands and is the all-time Pacific Rim Championships scoring leader. Always a team player, he came out of retirement for the 2003 World Cup and, in his last game for Canada, Bobby was named Man of the Match. Bobby has been inducted into the BC Rugby Hall of Fame and is honoured and humbled to be inducted into the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame.
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Bob McLaren was the greatest Canadian hurdler of his generation.
Bob attended Willows Elementary School and was soon to become a sprinting sensation during his years at Oak Bay High School. In 1963 he set records in the 100m and 200m sprints (records that were still standing when he was inducted into the Oak Bay High Hall of Fame in 2008). His Island high school record of 9.8 seconds in the 100 yards (10.7 seconds in the 100 metres) stood for many decades. Also in 1963, he was named “Outstanding High School Athlete” at the Provincial Championships.
That led to an NCAA track career in the U.S. collegiate ranks with the Oregon State Beavers in what was then the Pac-8 Conference. Long and lean at six-foot-three, Bob had all the natural attributes of a hurdler and was converted to the 400-metre hurdles from sprinting. He honed his skills as a 400m runner at Oregon State and held the Canadian record as well as becoming national champion in the hurdles and several other events (indoors and relays) from 1966 to 1968.
After just missing out on the national team for the 1966 Commonwealth Games, Bob bloomed the following year with two medals at the 1967 Pan American Games: Bronze in the 400-metre hurdles and Silver with the 4x400m Canadian relay team. As a result, he was named Victoria Athlete of the Year in 1967.
As national champion, Bob went on to compete in the 400m hurdles at the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics. This was an amazing accomplishment at a time when Canada was sending smaller teams to the Olympics and selection as an Olympian was very difficult to achieve.
“There was just so much going on at those Games and in the world,” Bob said of the 1968 Games. It was a different era in terms of the athletics, as well.
“I was primed, but injured myself in warm-ups just before the Olympic 400m hurdles race. We did not have a good support structure back in those days — nothing like athletes have today — and I was on my own to deal with it," said Bob, who struggled across the line in the preliminary rounds after being favoured to reach the Olympic final.
There was no such thing as a full-time amateur athlete back then. Bob got time off from his job at the Hudson's Bay department store to compete in the Olympics. “I was working full-time during the days and training at nights," he said. “When I got back from the Olympics, it was like: 'OK, now you're ready to work full-time, right?’” The thought of continuing on as a professional athlete was not even an option in that era, but there are no regrets about a career well run.
Although Bob’s undeniable and ample talent was hampered by injuries following Mexico City, his contributions to Victoria and Canadian track and field will stand forever.
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