He was also an active sports administrator, representing the club Oslo IL, of which he eventually became an honorary member. He was a co-founder and co-owner of the sports magazine , together with P. Chr. Andersen and Trygve Gulbranssen. In 1940, during the German occupation of Norway, Staff was among the pioneers in the development of the Norwegian resistance movement. As chairman of the sports group, he was a board member of what has been called the "Oslo group", or "R-group", along with other people such as newspaper editor Christian A. R. Christensen, trade unionist Lars Evensen, physician Johannes Heimbeck, and military officer John Rognes. He was also part of the initial military resistance (Milorg), as the resistance movement eventually split into civil resistance (Sivorg), military intelligence (XU) and military resistance.
