The Queensland rugby community is mourning the loss of one of their most passionate volunteers with the sudden death of Darren Kayrooz at 62.
Kayrooz was involved with the code across more than 40 years as a schools rugby administrator, coach, carnival convenor and ground announcer.
“Darren was arguably the most passionate rugby person I knew. His enthusiasm knew no bounds,” said close friend John Brew, the Executive Principal of the Brisbane School of Distance Education.
“He loved every aspect…the banter, the player development, the game itself.
“This is such a sad shock.”
Only recently, Brew presented Kayrooz with Life Membership to acknowledge all he had contributed to Met West School Sport.
Kayrooz loved watching the Reds and Wallabies as much as he hated aimless kicking.
Fish across Queensland can breathe a sigh of relief because the avid fisherman’s hook has been baited for the last time.
His energy to get involved and help where others might just talk a good game was evident throughout his volunteer life in rugby.
“At one of our regular carnivals, it was mentioned that we needed a ground announcer. ‘Darren will do it’ was the call. He did and he became a mainstay with the microphone,” Brew said.
Queensland Rugby Union Life Member Damien Barker said Kayrooz was part of the bedrock that all sports rely on.
“Darren knew people from Cairns to Goondiwindi because he had a huge hand working with local communities to host carnivals,” Barker said.
“He’ll be missed by many as will all he contributed.”
Kayrooz was a long-term physical education teacher at Kenmore State High School before his retirement last year.
It didn’t bring to an end what he gave to his favourite sport because he was active this year with hands-on administration at the Ballymore Cup and Queensland All Schools 7s.
Kayrooz was on the mic as ground announcer for the 2024 StoreLocal Hospital Cup grand final in his corner of Ballymore Stadium.
Across three days, he gave as much energy to the Buildcorp Emerging Reds Cup in September.
Kayrooz was introduced to rugby as a schoolboy at St Columban’s College, Albion and played the game as a proud member of The Front-Row Club when he commenced teaching in Maryborough in the early 1980s.
Once back in Brisbane in the 1990s, coaching and managing of teams became his focus. He could get emotional with tears of joy in the dressing room if one of his schoolboy teams won the day. Later, his rugby contributions took on the organisational flavour although he was at home coaching the Second XV at Marist College Ashgrove this year.
For more than a decade, the father-of-two was Secretary of the Queensland Rugby Football Schools Union.
“The fact that even after his retirement he sought out opportunities to give to the game tells you what sort of man Darren was,” said Gaven Head, the Queensland Rugby Union’s General Manager, Community Rugby.
“He was a worker and we valued all he put in to events like the Ballymore Cup.
“He loved the game and one of the last things he said to me was how excited he was to have got his British and Irish Lions tour tickets.”
