Introducing Basketballpaisley's Dynamic Duo Chris and Rebecca Cleary,
Christopher Cleary, Head of basketball has been part of Basketballpaisley ever since joining the Junior Men program at the age of 16. After a year playing in America he returned to the Senior men program and soon became heavily involved in coaching. Throughout the years he has brought home many a trophy, most notably coaching the U16 boys program to an undefeated double treble.
Chris’ background is in sports development where he currently holds post within Renfrewshire Active Schools having previously worked within Basketballscotland. Over the past month his tireless work has enabled our players to get back on the court in a safe and efficient manner.
He met his wife Rebecca, a fellow Basketballpaisley volunteer over 13 years ago at Friday Night Superleague. Their daughter Jess, aged 4 started following in their footsteps attending Girlshoops over the past month.
Perhaps his biggest basketball accolade to date was in 2018 when Chris was chosen to represent TeamScotland at the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast. The squad placed 4th in what was described as a Cinderella story, they made it to the semi finals despite being tipped not to win a single game.
Rebecca Cleary, Girls Programme Leader joined Basketballpaisley’s Superleague programme at the age of 9 as part of the Paisley Pistons. Throughout the years she went onto feature in the U14 through to Senior women squads, picking up national titles and international caps along the way. At the age of 17 she began coaching and hasn’t stopped since, leading 3 SL centres, building the additional support needs group and most recently leading the girls youth development program. She has also been heavily involved in the background gaining crucial funding throughout the years, most significantly playing a lead role in obtaining the DCI Sports Scotland funding.
Married to Chris and mother to Jess, her passion is building the girls side of the program to replicate its historical successes.
Her personal background is as an engineer at the University of Glasgow where over the past 5 years she has been juggling obtaining her PhD developing surgical devices alongside motherhood and volunteering with our club.
- Thankyou for all the work you both and we look forward to building a better basketball future behind your leadership and example.
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