Scotts Creek resident Darryl Neal has been awarded Basketball Victoria life membership and one of his finest memories is starting up Warrnambool's men's team in the late 1980s. 

"I went around to the Beer and Beef Club and said to the gentlemen 'I would like $500 from you, you and you'," he said. 

"They chipped in without any argument and that was the easiest bit.

"All these gentlemen put their money in and the basketball association put money in and we started a company (the Seahawks)."

Neal said the Beer and Beef Club, a community group, is still going all these years later and has meetings once a month.

A Seahawks outfit, which included Neal's sons Troy and Aaron, would go onto play its first season in the Country Victorian Invitational Basketball League (now the Big V) in 1989. 

Another of Neal's fond memories is of the Battle of the Nations game he organised, at the now demolished YMCA Stadium in Queens Road.

"I just picked out an American team to play an Australian team and we had it at the old basketball stadium," he said of the event held about 30 years ago. 

"It packed the stadium out." 

The game included the likes of Australian Olympic basketball legend Ian Davies and NBL hall of famer Cal Bruton, originally from New York.

Neal said he was in a good position to organise the event because he was involved in the national league with the Geelong Supercats. 

After helping the Seahawks take flight he served as Big V chairman for 26 years, before retiring in 2016. 

"When the Big V started, we had 20 teams, and when I finished we had 144," he said.

Neal's basketball feats are impressive given he never really played the game competitively. 

"I didn't know a lot about basketball but of course my sons started playing and I got interested in it," he said.

"I tried (playing) in the over 40s or over 50s.

"But you wouldn't call us a basketball team," he said with a laugh.  

Neal said he was humbled to be nominated for life membership by his peers in a sport he loves.

"I'm very honoured," he said.

"It's an award that a lot of people should get but don't."

Neal said being on the Tynan-Eyre Memorial Foundation board was a fulfilling experience.

It came after the the killing of two young policemen - Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre - in Melbourne in 1988.

Neal organised a charity basketball game.

"That was one of the most fulfilling things I've ever been a part of," he said. 

"It was the most rewarding part of basketball I have been involved with because it had a lot of meaning and we raised $1million for the MRI unit at the Alfred hospital. 

"My role there was to select an American team to play the Australian national team.

"The Americans were delighted to be part of that program, it was an easy thing to do, it was only matter of asking them."

Today the initiative is known as the Victoria Police Blue Ribbon Foundation. 

Neal said he was now a basketball "has-been" but he still enjoyed watching matches from afar on TV.

His sons Troy, Aaron and Jarrod played basketball and his grandchildren Greta and Max play in Terang.

The retired farmer and commercial agent, who has a new caravan, is travelling Australia with his wife Jan. 

Neal, a keen photographer, said they were also about to undertake a two-month adventure in Asia. 

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