He set four world records in the pole vault during his career, became Norwegian champion ten times in different events, and competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics.

He was born in Fredrikstad as the son of mechanic Karl Ludvig Hoff and his wife Olga Kristine Karlsen.

After taking the examen artium in 1921, he moved to Kristiania to attend the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry.

[8] In the winter of 1926, Hoff toured the United States, staging show competitions as a part of a varieté performance group.

He found a new job as sports editor of Oslo Illustrerte from 1936 to 1940, and also wrote for the Nasjonal Samling party newspaper Fritt Folk in the late 1930s.

[13] In September 1940 he was given the position as deputy under-secretary of state in the new Ministry of Labour and Sports,[2] which was headed by Axel Heiberg Stang.

[2] However, the Nazi interference with sports resulted in a nationwide boycott of official athletics meetings in Norway from the end of 1940.

Egil Reichborn-Kjennerud was installed as leader of the Norwegian Confederation of Sports, while Hoff used the Hird as an arena for his work.

[13] He had a number of grand plans; sports in Norway should be state-led, and the aim was to produce a broad range of athletes rather than a few stars.

[13] As a part of the legal purge in Norway after World War II in 1947 he was sentenced to nine years of forced labour.

[13] A number of his ideas were actually realized some years later, including a national school of sport sciences and a state-owned gambling company.

He had formerly published the novel Systemet in 1925 as well as a retelling of his experiences in the United States, titled Fra New York til Hollywood.