Meet Claire Perry of We Coach; Showcase Basketball

Today we’d like to introduce you to Claire Perry.

Claire, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’ve always loved sports, particularly basketball. I was that tomboy in school who played kickball at recess and wore matching purple sweatshirt and sweatpants with a hole at the knee. Today I still love sports but not in the way where I follow stats, players, or even teams, really. If there was a college though to follow, it’d be Villanova. Go wildcats.

In high school, my mom found an article in the PARADE insert of the Sunday newspaper about a program called PeacePlayers; PeacePlayers teaches basketball and uses the sport as a tool to bridge divides, change perceptions, and build leaders with kids all over the world. For recent student athlete graduates, PeacePlayers provides a two-year PeaceCorps-like fellowship in South Africa, Middle East, Northern Ireland, or Cyprus. From the moment I read the PARADE article and saw the picture of the co-founder Sean Tuohey hanging with a young South African kid in Umlazi township, I knew that was it – that’s what I wanted to do. I had recently torn my ACL at the height of college basketball recruiting and with PeacePlayers’ incredible mission, serving as a PeacePlayers Fellow in South Africa was my new guiding light. I was fortunate to play basketball at and attend Cornell University (Go Big Red-wait, there’s my team!), studied business though in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have. While my fellow business-major friends were making over $10k a summer in their ibanking gigs, I waitressed (horribly-I’m a horrible waitress) at a Brooklyn vegan restaurant to supplement my grant-funded gig as a summer baseball/softball coach and literacy teacher as part of the program Harlem RBI (now called DREAM). While at CU, I took classes within the Africana studies department and continued to play basketball until I tore my other ACL my senior year. Naively thinking like many a white girl, early 20-something who thinks they’re deserving of their dream because of all their hard work, my very privledged-self applied for the PeacePlayers fellowship and dreamed of living on the beaches of Durban, South Africa. Then, I got rejected. So, naturally, I quit my then job at the height of the recession and volunteered through AmeriCorps to serve as a tennis coach and literacy teacher in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood through another program called Tenacity. Re-applied almost two years later and then, I got the fellowship.

While with PeacePlayers, we built a girls leadership program, trained local young adults to serve as coach mentors, chatted about and experienced gender dynamics at play and discussed the power of cultural vs modern medicine against HIV and AIDS. One time we taught a basketball session with an empty water bottle to a school of 150+ kids who only spoke isiZulu. I witnessed and experienced incredible sadness and beauty, feelings which still linger today. I hung with the coaches and their families in the townships, learned how to braai, danced to Afro house, and built deep relationships with humans who have and still do endure incredible hardship and still lead with love and forgiveness.

Once the two years with PeacePlayers were complete, I no longer had that guiding light, that one thing that I absolutely knew I wanted to do. I did, however, know that the sport for good world (however it was and is defined today), was the space where I felt home. Where I could wear those purple sweat pants again-not necessarily playing kickball this time but talking, working, collaborating and just surrounding myself with others who were also the only girl who played with the boys at recess, who believed that sport was more than just xs and os; it was where one could dare to be brave. To be themselves.

I moved to NYC and continued to work in the sport for good world at the national non-profit Up2Us Sports. We built a program called Coach Across America for young adults to serve as trained and paid coach mentors for youth in urban areas. We trained and supported hundreds of humans to serve as positive coach mentors to thousands of youth throughout the country and increased kids.

Six years at Up2Us helping build, fundraise, and manage growth and strategy, we drove from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. We moved here so I could help a friend with a start-up though almost immediately found my way back to the sport for good world by returning to work with my friends and experts in the sport for good world, Megan Bartlett and David Flynn at their company, We Coach. We Coach works with organizations, companies, and foundations across the globe to recognize and amplify their social impact through sport. We provide training, consulting, and technical support services in: trauma-informed strategies, program design, coach and staff training, collective impact, and evaluation.

Since graduating CU, I’ve also coached basketball, from providing private lessons to serving as the head coach for a Philadelphia area high school girls team. Coaching is addictive; it’s impossible to stop once you’ve started thus almost as soon we arrived in LA, I started my own basketball training and teambuilding business called CP21. Soon there after, I was fortunate enough to start working with the youth basketball program Showcase Basketball. Showcase provides positive, fun and competitive programs in Burbank and Glendale to kids of all ages and skill levels.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I am beyond grateful that I get to work in the sport for good space because there’s just so much to talk about when talking about the power of sport. And I love it. I love talking about the power of a good coach. The power of vulnerability and its invitation to build trusting relationships with whomever you’re with on or off the court. The tools that sport teaches kids and adults to use in the game and in life.

I’m most thankful for this sport for good space because of the community and it’s 99% guarantee I’m going to be surrounded by good humans who’ve dedicated their lives to building even better humans.

And as a single mom of a seven year old son (a single white mom of an African American son), I need this community.

As a single parent, it’s nearly impossible to have a ‘normal’ job or career. Although I don’t think I’d be very good at a 9-5 corporate job, it’s not really a reality for single parents. Instead, I have had to take a demotion in title and pay to have more flexibility and a smaller commute. I work two jobs and live by the, ‘you know what-somehow, everything will work out.’

Every day there’s just always something; some sort of scheduling mishap, a forgotten field trip slip, and/or lunch. My son’s socks are always mismatched, usually you can find that speck of sleep in the corner of his eyes and his hair is just off the charts crazy. Although that last one is probably because I need help in maintaining his half white, half black hair. I’m often late and am thanking the numerous people who help me pick him up from school and take him to baseball and dance because my choice to have him alone can’t impact his childhood. When I do have to be on-site for work, he’s sometimes tagging along because my plan b, c, and d just fell through, and I end up apologizing for having a six year old at my hip or chilling with the coaches. I miss deadlines and ask for extensions (thank you, LA Voyage). The guilt is daily.

Since having my son (his name is, Leo) I’ve learned to reframe challenges as opportunities. Another lesson that can be learned through sport. I’ll take working two jobs if it allows me to have more time with my son in a space where I know he’s loved and celebrated for who he is. We Coach and Showcase Basketball staff are diverse in gender and race and preach love through sport. Leo shows his face during We Coach Google Hangout meetings, and he’s journeyed with me to South Africa where we facilitated a three-day trauma-informed coach training. He’s almost always in the basketball gym at the Burbank YMCA where we host Showcase programming; he ‘thinks,’ he’s going to be the next Steph Curry. Or Greg Minor (ex Celtics and co-coach at Showcase Basketball).

I am incredibly grateful for my family who has helped me raise Leo and for our extended families with friends, We Coach and Showcase communities. We miss our Perrys (a lot) on the east coast though we do have Leo’s uncles here (both Jack Perry and David Crabb were also highlighted in Voyage LA).

Leo is my life-my now forever guiding light. We’re writing a kids book series together, now. (Maybe a TV series? We are in LA). The series will use sport and play to discover and celebrate different cultures around the world. As part of the larger mission, we hope to highlight sport for good programs all over the world. Working title, Leo and his Magic Ball, Bruno.

Please tell us about We Coach; Showcase Basketball.
We Coach provides trauma-informed coach trainings across the globe. We talk about individual and community stress and its impact on brain development and exhibited behaviors. We utilize research from Dr. Bruce Perry (everyone go read The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog) and the Child Trauma Academy and thank California’s first surgeon general Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and her research on the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study. And then, we discuss the awesome power of physical activity and relationships to help kids (and all humans) rewire their brain to think more critically about their decisions. My old co-worker at Up2Us Sports, Megan Bartlett, founded We Coach and has at both Up2Us and We Coach been building the model for what a trauma-informed sports program and coach looks like. We’ve facilitated training with Nike store employees to serve as Nike Community Ambassadors; we’ve partnered with Nike and LA Rec and Parks to launch and grow the Women Coach LA program, training hundreds of women to serve as coach mentors for girls throughout LA county; we’ve supported program design and evaluation and trained staff at LA-based program, Merging Veterans and Players (MVP). Our friend Jacob Toups is MVP’s Executive Director, check out his Voyage LA article.

No other program provides trauma-informed, interactive and facilitated coach training because no one else has the person who started it all, Megan Bartlett. Megan is the originator, the connector, the matrix builder of the content and its application to sports. The We Coach culture is inclusive, loving, and intoxicating, and we’re dedicated to helping kids heal, grow and thrive. Most people leave our trainings smiling and empowered, lingering afterwards to learn more about the content, how to bring more trainings to their communities and how to serve as a We Coach trainer themselves. One attendee at our Women Coach LA trainings said she had no idea what to expect though within minutes she felt like she was with family.

Showcase Basketball is a coed youth basketball program that provides basketball instruction for kids of all ages and skill levels. Based in and operating out of the Burbank and Glendale YMCA facilities, we provide one on one or small group private instruction, team play, camps and shooting instruction. Our founder, Jeff Christensen, has created an amazing, positive culture by celebrating progress versus outcome and supporting both player and human development. All coaches are paid, trained (many of whom attended We Coach trainings), and have played and excelled at the college and/or professional level.

This past year we’ve had an incredible amount of growth: we’ve added programming to the Glendale area, developed our girls-only program, led overseas NBA camps, and re-launched a school and community outreach program.

I’m proud of what both We Coach and Showcase contribute to the sport for good world. We Coach provides the research and strategies on how to serve as positive coach mentors and Showcase takes that knowledge and puts the techniques to action to build better humans both on and off the court.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I am the youngest of five kids (girl, three boys, then me). I was always hanging around, trying to just be part of whatever they were doing; I’m sure they loved every moment as much as I did. Every Thanksgiving and/or Christmas holiday, we’d have our 20+ cousins over, and we’d play touch football along with the uncles and aunts. I was the youngest, smallest, probably most annoying and yet always saw somehow given a role, mostly to just rush the quarterback. I loved every second I was counting out loud-ONE, one thousand, TWO one thousand…and I could have sworn I was the fastest person on earth during that rush.

I think I may have lightly grazed a cousin QB maybe one time. That’s probably how I got the hole in the knee of my purple sweat pants.

Contact Info:

• Address: We Coach (national office is in Chicago. Trainings, program design and consultant work happen wherever requested/needed. Locally-We’re based in Pasadena.); Showcase Basketball, 321 Magnolia Ave., Burbank, CA 91502
• Website: weallcoach.com ; showcasebasketball.com
• Phone: 267-895-5798 ; 503-453-7741
• Email: cperry@weallcoach.com ; claire@showcasebasketball.com
• Instagram: @we_allcoach ; showcase_bball (my IG: @chapaqwa, Leo’s IG 😉 @leo_b_perry)
• Twitter: @we_allcoach ; @Showcase_Bball (my Twitter: @chapaqwa)

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