Queensland rugby league great Sam Backo has died in hospital after a three-month battle with tropical soil disease melioidosis and complications related to an ongoing heart condition. The ABC received permission from Backo's family to use his name and image in this story. The former State of Origin front-rower was admitted to Cairns Hospital in April and diagnosed with the bacterial disease, which has killed 35 people in Queensland so far this year. Backo, who underwent quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery after a massive heart attack two years ago, was transferred to Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane in July to have his implantable cardioverter defibrillator upgraded to a pacemaker. The 64-year-old has been remembered not just for his achievements on the field, but for his humour, humility and hard work to advance the cause of Indigenous Australians. 'Huge generosity of spirit' In a joint statement, Backo's sisters Dolores, Charmaene, Kathrine and Jewel said he was more than just a great footballer, a former Origin great and a recipient of the Australian Sports Medal. "He was of course all those things, but he was also a strong fighter for his people, the Warrgamay people and the South Sea Islander community, descended from Ni-Vanuatu and Solomon Islander people kidnapped as slave labour for the Queensland and NSW sugar industry," they said. "Even as he lay in the Cairns Hospital's intensive care unit, he made sure he sent a message of condolence to the family of a friend who had just passed. "Just one example of the measure of the man." A proud heritage Backo was born in Ingham in 1961, and grew up at nearby Cordelia and Halifax. It was a footy-mad sugarcane farming area of North Queensland where kids lived almost explicitly barefoot — even when they went to church. His mother, Dr Evelyn Scott AO, was a renowned Aboriginal rights activist and a key figure in the 1967 referendum that achieved citizenship for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. "He likes to quote a passage that our mother had on the wall: 'We all belong to one race — the human race.'" Backo had a ringside seat to some of the most significant moments in the fight for Indigenous constitutional recognition. He was present for conversations around the kitchen table with the likes of Eddie "Koiki" Mabo, who decades later became the face of the native title movement. The young Backo clung to every word. But he was still just a boy. A big one, admittedly, but a boy nonetheless. And in North Queensland, there was one sport that all the boys wanted to play. Slammin' Sam takes the field Backo played his first game of junior rugby league with the Lower Herbert Dolphins. He was only seven but ran hard, fast and fearless against the older kids in the Under 10s competition. He would go on to play in Cairns, Canberra, Yeppoon and was recruited by Fortitude Valley in the Brisbane Rugby League (BRL) competition before his big break arrived — a tap on the shoulder from the Canberra Raiders in 1983. Slammin' Sam, as he came to be known, was an unstoppable force. He played only seven games for the Raiders in that first season but soon became a linchpin of the team, notching up 115 matches and 15 tries across six seasons in Canberra. He was named sportsman of the year in the National Aborigines Day of Celebration awards in 1985, played in the 1987 grand final when Canberra lost to Manly, and made his State of Origin debut the next year. In 1988, he moved to the United Kingdom for a short and unremarkable stint with Leeds but returned to Australia to join the Brisbane Broncos in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition and subsequently pulled on a Maroons jumper once again. In all, Sam played 134 representative matches in the NRL, with seven State of Origin appearances, and represented the Kangaroos six times. He was the first Australian forward to score tries in all three tests during an Ashes series against England and was named Dally M Front Rower of the Year that same year in 1988. After being named man of the match following an Origin match that year, Backo delivered his now-famous response when a reporter asked: "What was it like out there, Sam?" A chronic knee injury meant he had only had limited appearances with the Broncos. It ultimately cut his career short at age 29. Life after football In 1990, Backo accepted a job offer from the Queensland Corrective Services Commission to work with Indigenous prisoners. He was still playing for the Broncos but was sidelined for much of the season due to his knee injury. He was beginning to think about "life after football". "There'll be times when I'm sure it will feel like I'm bashing my head against a wall," he told the Canberra Times of his new posting. "But I'm a blackfella. I've done that for years. Indigenous advocacy was not some new-found interest for Backo. He told the newspaper his involvement in Aboriginal affairs started when he was "chased around south Townsville" by dogs as a six-year-old while delivering pamphlets before the 1967 referendum. Advancing First Nations rights Backo took his cultural obligations very seriously. After the death of his mother in 2017, he negotiated with the Queensland government and Hinchinbrook Shire Council to have a memorial stone placed in Halifax to honour the three neighbouring traditional owner groups — Nywaigi, Warrgamay and Biyaygiri (Bandjin). "The offer was originally for a memorial plaque for our mum, however Sam insisted that all traditional owners must be included," his sisters said. In August 2021, he played a key role in the Warrgamay people's successful native title victory which won recognition of rights to more than 185,000 hectares of land and water from Lucinda on the coast, extending along the Seaview Range, and into Girringun National Park He was enormously proud of the victory. "This determination will give us the opportunity to hopefully benefit not only traditionally and culturally but also economically from our country." He was always putting his hand up for something. Back in 1993, Backo was one of 50 marshals who strictly controlled crowd behaviour during an hour-long peaceful march through the streets of Brisbane in protest over the death of Daniel Yock, an 18-year-old Aboriginal dancer who died in the back of a police van. Almost three decades later, he was still out marching — this time chanting into a loudspeaker as he led the Because of Race rally through the streets of Cairns. In 2017, Backo was one of 250 Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander delegates who gathered at Uluru for the first Indigenous constitutional convention. The document developed during that meeting, titled the Uluru Statement from the Heart, outlined a three-stage process of reforms — "Voice, Treaty, Truth". However, Backo told the ABC in 2023 that he intended to vote "no" in the Voice to Parliament referendum over concerns about representation. "At the end of the day … constitutional recognition, yes, [but] … as Indigenous people, no man speaks for another man's country." Footy, fame and family In 2008, Backo was named in the Australian Rugby League's Indigenous Team of the Century alongside players like Gorden Tallis, Artie Beetson, Matty Bowen and Johnathan Thurston. At the time, he told Torres News he was "happy to play for my state and country, but to get this recognition, not only from your peers, but the people, is a very special honour". However, his greatest pride was his family. "He was fiercely proud of his four sisters and loved them dearly," his family said. "He often reflected on the old-fashioned discipline that we experienced growing up into adulthood. They said he believed the discipline was character building and helped him, and them, become better adults. "Despite his immense success as an athlete his proudest achievements were always his six children — Elaine, Jacob, Daniel, Luke, Sarah and Peter — and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren." Backo often talked about being raised by his loving grandparents Melba and Ishmael Backo and the close bond he enjoyed with his 13 aunts and uncles. "He called them his aunts and uncles but in fact they were his mums and dads too, as they all had a hand in raising him," his sisters recalled. "Each one had a special place in his heart and when they called on him, he was there. "They were proud of him and let him know as much." Health troubles begin Backo cut a striking figure even in his later years. Standing at 188 centimetres, he had broad shoulders, a big moustache and a Harley Davidson motorbike he loved to ride around Cairns. After his heart surgery in 2023, he used his profile to publicly urge Indigenous Australians to prioritise health screenings, citing the death of a former teammate who died from a heart attack after ignoring symptoms. Backo was in a coma for 10 days after that heart attack. He said he was clinically dead for two and a half minutes and saw his late mother while lying on the hospital bed. "And I came back." Doctors at Cairns Hospital in April this year diagnosed Backo with melioidosis — a disease caused by soil-dwelling bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei which is endemic to tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world. Cases have surged in Queensland this year with 237 notifications and 35 deaths, mostly in the Cairns and Townsville regions, recorded between January 1 and July 20. The 124 notifications in Cairns represented a fourfold increase on the average number of cases for the same period over the previous five years. Backo believed he contracted the disease after swimming in a creek to cool down after going for a ride on his beloved Harley on a hot day. 'When your time's up, your time's up' In his final interview from the intensive care unit at Cairns Hospital a fortnight ago before the State of Origin decider, Backo told the ABC his body had not been reacting well with antibiotics. Attempts to discharge him for "hospital at home" care had proven unsuccessful, so he had spent the better part of three months in the intensive care unit with his wife Chrissy Warren-Backo by his side. Doctors had spoken with Backo about "getting [his] affairs in order" — but he had resolved to keep battling against the odds. "I previously said to them, you know, 'When your time's up, your time's up' — but I've had a rethink," he told the ABC. He called the medical staff at Cairns Hospital his "angels". His sisters echoed the sentiment after his passing. "Sam's family would like to sincerely thank all the amazing doctors and nurses who cared for Sam in Cairns Hospital," they said. "Also, the cardiac and heart surgeons who took such good care of him at Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane."