Redlands Coast Sports Hall of Fame Kicks Off

A generous donation has kicked off an initiative to honour sporting legends born and bred in the Redlands as the search for a committee of sporting greats and club representatives begins.

Redland businessman Rabieh Krayem donated $15,000 from one of his companies to the Redlands Coast Hall of Fame and Sports Award initiative, led by veteran touch football coach Pat Carroll and managed by the Victoria Point Sharks Sporting Club's management committee.

Mr Carroll said the initiative would pay tribute to athletes, both past and present, who started their careers in the Redlands and made sporting history.

"Many people from across the Redlands have gone on to become world champions in their sports," he said.

"That's just not recent, you can go back to the 1930s, 1940's and there's a lot of boxers who were in the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, and we want to recognise people from the past as well as the present," he said.

Mr Carroll said the next step for the group was to find a committee of sporting clubs across the Redlands.

"For this to become a really major entity, we need the buy in of a lot of sports and businesses," he said.

"We need a lot of involvement from all clubs who have this history so we can recognise everyone who has dome something for sport in the Redlands.

"The Sports awards will also recognise clubs, coaches, volunteers, and officials who have also attained a lot of recognition over the years."

Mr Krayem, who is the former CEO of the North Queensland Cowboys Rugby League Club and a number of other sporting clubs, said his donation would go towards, tracking down the historic sporting greats to form the history of the hall of fame.

"The $15,000 will go towards recognising the history and trying to bring it together. It's about getting the ball rolling and making it happen," he said.

"In sport we are very poor story tellers and our community clubs are probably the worst. We're so engrossed in what we do every day as volunteers that we don't celebrate our successes.

"What I think it's important from a city perspective is that we recognize the success, and this initiative is hopefully going to deliver that, because we should be proud as a city of we have achieved."

Mr Carroll said the next step was to get clubs involved to grow the initiative and hopefully hold the inaugural annual dinner to recognise sporting legends from the Redlands in 2023.