Founder

Garry Jeffery Daly AM was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1988 as a General Member for his contribution to sports administration. He is the Founder and inaugural Chair of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

Daly imagined the idea of a national Hall of Fame in 1975 whilst working as the full time Executive Director of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia. Then, following a decision by the Federal Government to remove government funding from Australian sport, at a meeting of representatives of national sporting bodies held to consider what action could be taken to overturn this decision, he moved a motion to form the Confederation of Australian Sport and became its founding Honorary Secretary.

In 1976 he became Secretary of the International Asian Tennis Circuit, then in October 1978 he became the full time Executive Director of the Confederation of Australian Sport where he proposed and oversaw the establishment of the annual sport award system, the Sport Australia Awards.

In late 1977 Daly formed an association with Wayne Reid OBE as General Manager of ISM Pty Ltd, a sports management consultancy, with the development of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame as a priority project. He became it’s Executive Director and when the Sport Australia Hall of Fame was opened in December 1985 he researched and nominated 441 sportspeople, of whom 120 were the Hall’s first inductees. He successfully sought the participation of Sir Donald Bradman AC as number one Member and Sir Hubert Opperman OBE as the first Chairman of the Selection Committee. He continued to manage the program until 1996 by which time 283 Australian sports people had been inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

After leaving the Confederation in 1989, Daly continued to organise the Sport Australia Awards until 1993 and on the basis of knowledge gained on a private tour of Hall of Fame’s and sports museums in North America in 1986 he conceived and established the Legends of Australian Sports program. In December 1993, Betty Cuthbert AC MBE became the first athlete recognised as a Legend, before Daly oversaw the naming and honouring of a further fifteen Legends.

In 1994 Daly donated the Sport Australia Hall of Fame program, including its intellectual rights and the film collection of Sir Donald Bradman to the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Club and became the founding Chairman of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Trust. In 1996, he stepped down from these positions and the Trust and the Club were integrated into the present structure.

Daly served as Secretary of the Australia Sports Media Association from 1989 to 2000 and on the International Olympic Committee Sport for All Coordination Group from 1995 to 2002. In 2004, he was elected Chairman of the Asia Pacific and Oceania Masters Games Board of Management.