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Canada basketball

Carly Clarke Named Senior Women's National Team Assistant Coach

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Oct 31, 2018

TORONTO, Ont. (November 1, 2017) - Canada Basketball's Senior Women's National Team is pleased to announce that Carly Clarke will be joining the team as an assistant coach, effective immediately.

"We are excited to add Carly Clarke as an assistant coach with our senior women's national team program," said Denise Dignard, Director, Women's High Performance. "She has demonstrated the ability to develop athletes and has excelled at every level, including achieving historic results at the international level as head coach of our women's age-group national teams over the past seven years.

"We look forward to Carly bringing her expertise and experience to the coaching team as our senior program continues its quest to reach the Olympic podium," said Dignard.

Entering her eighth season with Canada Basketball, Clarke previously coached the cadet women's national team for five seasons before spending her last two years behind the bench of the junior women's national team.

"I am incredibly excited to join the senior women's national team staff," said Carly Clarke, Assistant Coach, Senior Women's National Team. "After gaining invaluable experience at the age group levels for the past several years, I am both humbled and honoured to join our world class staff at the senior national team level, and to be given the opportunity to work with some of the best athletes in the world.

"I am eager to learn and grow from Coach Thomaidis and the rest of the staff, while ultimately finding ways to add value to help this program continue to work towards our goal of medaling at the Olympics," said Clarke.

This past summer, Clarke led her team to a historic showing at the FIBA U19 Women's Basketball World Cup 2017, defeating Japan in the bronze medal game to capture Canada's first medal at the tournament.

In 2015 as head coach of the cadette women's national team, Clarke also helped secure the program's first gold medal at the FIBA Americas U16 Championship for Women.

Clarke also led Canada to their first medal at an international FIBA women's age group event, as her cadette team captured a bronze medal at the 2012 FIBA U17 World Championship in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Over the course of her seven seasons with Canada Basketball, Clarke's teams have found the podium six times in FIBA Americas and World Championship events.

Clarke is also the head coach of the Ryerson Rams women's basketball team, a position she has held since June 2012.  With Clarke behind the bench, the Rams have qualified for the postseason each year, including their first Critelli Cup title as Ontario University Athletics (OUA) women's basketball champions in 2016.

Prior to joining the Rams, Clarke spent three seasons as the head coach at UPEI and also served as the lead assistant coach at Dalhousie from 2006 to 2008.

In 2008-09, Clarke was an apprentice coach within Canada Basketball's National Elite Development Academy (NEDA).

Clarke has held various coaching roles with several provincial teams and Centre for Performance programs, including the Nova Scotia Training Centre (2006-08) and the Centre for Performance in Charlottetown, P.E.I. (2009-12).

On the court, the Halifax, N.S. native played five seasons with the Bishop's University Gaiters, including a QSSF championship and fifth-place finish at the CIS Final 8 in 2004.

A Level III NCCP certified coach, Clarke is currently completing her Advanced Coaching Diploma at the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario (CSIO).