By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

About a dozen local chief executives have joined the Quarterback Club, a new initiative to be unveiled Monday by the combined charitable foundations of Bengals coach Marvin Lewis and former team standout Anthony Munoz.

The group hopes to recruit about 20 CEOs, each one contributing $25,000 a year, to the club. It hopes to raise $1 million a year and identify a signature project that will help Cincinnati children.

"I think sports tends to bring people together around an issue," said Sharon Thomas, development director of the combined group, who ran a similar effort with the Washington Redskins, where Lewis worked before coming to the Bengals. "I think it's the passion, the community interest in sports."

The program will be administered by the combination of the Marvin Lewis Community Fund and the Anthony Munoz Foundation.

Munoz said the program's top priority would be helping inner-city children.

"The more you expand the team with quality leaders, the better it works," he said. "These people are quality leaders."

Revenue for the foundations comes from speaking fees and special fundraisers by both Lewis and Munoz. Lewis, for example, did 40 appearances in his first two months in Cincinnati, and has an average of one a day scheduled for February.

The Munoz Foundation raised and distributed about $150,000 in 2002 and half a million dollars in 2003, Thomas said.

The group wants to recruit about 20 CEOs to the program. The list already includes top executives as corporations including AK Steel, Procter & Gamble Co., Cincinnati Bell Inc., Corporex Cos. Inc., Federated Department Stores Inc. and Cincinnati Financial Corp.

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com