Photo by: Jeremy Cannon
Clarke Hoping CU Can Help Her Reach Her Olympic Dream
July 26, 2018 | Women's Basketball
Australian native was a late find for the Buffs in the 2018 recruiting class
BOULDER – Emma Clarke has one major goal in life, to play in the Olympics for her home country of Australia. A native of Perth, Western Australia, she originally committed to play basketball at UC Santa Barbara, but coaching staff turnover there led her to reopen her recruitment and sign with Colorado, a decision she believes will ultimately help her achieve her goal of playing for the Opals in the Olympics one day.
Clarke is on the right career path so far for making the Olympic team at some point in her future, starring on Australia's youth national teams. In 2017 she represented the U-17 team at the FIBA Oceania Championships and averaged 18.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists, while shooting 60.7 percent from the floor. She led Australia to the gold medal and an undefeated tournament, and was named to the All-Star 5 as one of the tournament's five best players.
"That was a really good experience and anytime I'm in the green and gold, it's a rush," Clarke said. "You just really want to represent your country and I want to do my family proud and obviously myself and all of my friends."
Clarke was also selected for camp with the U-18 team in August, but will be unable to attend due to CU's foreign tour in Italy and school starting when the team returns to Boulder next month. But she still hopes to be selected to Australia's squad that will compete in India in October at the 2018 FIBA Asia U-18 Championships. The top four finishers will all qualify for the U-19 world championships next summer.
Looking ahead to this season at CU, Payne thinks Clarke will be able to contribute immediately to an already strong backcourt. At 6-foot-1, she brings length, skill and athleticism to the Buffs on the perimeter.
"Emma comes to CU with a very high basketball IQ," head coach JR Payne said. "She has played with some very high-level talent and has a good feel for the game. She is long, versatile and athletic and has the ability to play a variety of guard positions. I believe her ability to run the floor will help our transition game and her length will be an asset on both ends of the floor. We have a strong backcourt already and I believe that Emma has the potential to contribute offensively and defensively to this group."
Back when Clarke was initially committed to UCSB, she was concerned more about the chance to play immediately than about her long-term goals. She believed she stood a good chance of starting as a freshman at UCSB.
"I was really hell-bent on playing and just wanted to go somewhere where I was going to play [right away]," Clarke said. "Then I kind of reevaluated after I reopened my recruitment and said, 'what do I really want in a school?' With the Under-19s in Australia coming up, I needed people to actually push me like at an international level and really fight for positions. I don't want to just take it easy, I want to work for my spot on the team and really challenge and see where my basketball can take me."
Clarke determined that she can get the level of competition to prepare for international play in Boulder, both with her teammates in practice at CU, and on a game-by-game basis in the Pac-12 Conference.
But if not for the changes at UCSB, Clarke never would have stepped foot on campus in Boulder and perhaps would not have had the opportunity to build her game at a Power Five school. She visited Santa Barbara in January and really liked the coaching staff and players, giving a verbal commitment shortly after her visit.
After a shake up in the coaching staff and some turnover on the roster, Clarke decided to reopen her recruitment. Within a day, CU assistant coach Toriano Towns was on the phone with her, a call that lasted two hours.
"Coach T just got to know me, asked me how I am, what do I do, what do I like in school, basketball questions, and what I look for in a school and he just said they really wanted to have me here," Clarke said. "A few days later, Coach J [Payne] called and we Facetimed and it was kind of the same, just getting to know them. It was really easy [to talk to them].
"When I heard from them, I just researched on the internet and called a few people and I was just overwhelmed with how amazing this university was because it was never in my prospects. I was just like, 'wow, this Pac-12 school wants me.' I just never envisioned that I would go to such a high-profile school with such amazing coaches...I had heard lots of good reviews about CU—[it's in the] Pac-12, [has] amazing coaches, a good program, and a good vision of where they want to go and the program that they're trying to make. They're in a nice area. It's like Australia, but just missing the beach."
Since the CU coaches had yet to see Clarke play in person, they had to do their own research on her. Jeff Cammon, who was an assistant at CU under Payne in 2016-17, recruited Clarke to play at Long Beach State, where he finished his first season as head coach in 2017-18. He gave Payne a strong recommendation.
"We were very excited to learn about Emma because she came to highly recommended by people that we really trust," Payne said. "Jeff said, 'You will LOVE her! She's your kind of player.' That has definitely turned out to be true. Jeff is a fantastic recruiter and knows our system and style very well. When he called and told us how much we would love Emma, I was instantly excited about her potential."
The beach is the one thing, besides her family, that Clarke misses from home. In fact, it was one of her top factors in her initial list of schools she considered. Nearly every school was located near a beach in California, including Long Beach State and UCSB. When the Buffs came calling, she realized that it might be a nice change of pace to live in Colorado's breathtaking Rocky Mountains for a few years, a half hour Denver, and in the center of the United States.
It's a stark contrast from Perth, known as the second-most isolated major city in the world because it is a five-hour flight from the nearest major city. But it is also a beautiful city along white sand beaches and turquoise waters, located on the southwest coast of Australia on the Indian Ocean. The natural beauty was the common denominator.
"In Perth, I'm like a five-minute walk from the beach, which is really nice," Clarke said. "But I chose CU because the environment is so clean, there's trees everywhere, the sky is blue, there's mountains, which is different, and it's a change of scenery. I thought I'll probably never live in snow and see snow ever again, so these four years are like a big change diversity-wise."
Just to clarify, this coming winter will not be her first experience seeing snow. Clarke has seen it before when visiting parts of the eastern half of Australia, though she admitted most of it was man-made. But she has never lived in a place where it has snowed.
Clarke is extremely close with her family, but she said the transition to CU will not be as hard as it might normally be to leave home and go across the world. That's because she spent 2017 at the Australian Institute of Sport's Centre of Excellence as one of 12 players in the country selected for a basketball scholarship. She had to move across the country to Canberra, located in Australian Capital Territory, an hour from the southeastern coast.
Her family made her year away at the institute much easier.
"My dad and my family set me up really well before I left and they gave me all of the skills and tools I needed to succeed," Clarke said. "My dad is like my idol and such an influence on me as a person. And my mum's amazing too. I don't know how I would have done that transition without them, or made this transition, just knowing they're at home and they've got my back and they're always there when I need them. That made it a lot easier, just knowing the support is there."
She joked that her younger brother, who is 9, has already moved into her room.
These next four years should be similar to her year away from home in 2017, but across the world instead of across the country. So far, it has been a smooth transition. Clarke mentioned the coaches, upperclassmen Alexis Robinson and Quinessa Caylao-Do, and her fellow freshman have all been huge in helping her feel at home.
The other four freshmen are like sisters to her.
"We're all pretty close and we always hang out together," Clarke said. "We make sure everyone's okay, doing our schoolwork together, coming to get extra shots. We go out sometimes to The Hill, or we just go on drives up in the mountains and the views up there are really nice."
Her biggest challenge so far has been going back to school. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia's academic year ends in November ahead of their summer, so Clarke has been out of school for over half a year. But her professors and academic advisors have been helpful in her transition back to the classroom.
Clarke is on the right career path so far for making the Olympic team at some point in her future, starring on Australia's youth national teams. In 2017 she represented the U-17 team at the FIBA Oceania Championships and averaged 18.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists, while shooting 60.7 percent from the floor. She led Australia to the gold medal and an undefeated tournament, and was named to the All-Star 5 as one of the tournament's five best players.
"That was a really good experience and anytime I'm in the green and gold, it's a rush," Clarke said. "You just really want to represent your country and I want to do my family proud and obviously myself and all of my friends."
Clarke was also selected for camp with the U-18 team in August, but will be unable to attend due to CU's foreign tour in Italy and school starting when the team returns to Boulder next month. But she still hopes to be selected to Australia's squad that will compete in India in October at the 2018 FIBA Asia U-18 Championships. The top four finishers will all qualify for the U-19 world championships next summer.
Looking ahead to this season at CU, Payne thinks Clarke will be able to contribute immediately to an already strong backcourt. At 6-foot-1, she brings length, skill and athleticism to the Buffs on the perimeter.
"Emma comes to CU with a very high basketball IQ," head coach JR Payne said. "She has played with some very high-level talent and has a good feel for the game. She is long, versatile and athletic and has the ability to play a variety of guard positions. I believe her ability to run the floor will help our transition game and her length will be an asset on both ends of the floor. We have a strong backcourt already and I believe that Emma has the potential to contribute offensively and defensively to this group."
Back when Clarke was initially committed to UCSB, she was concerned more about the chance to play immediately than about her long-term goals. She believed she stood a good chance of starting as a freshman at UCSB.
"I was really hell-bent on playing and just wanted to go somewhere where I was going to play [right away]," Clarke said. "Then I kind of reevaluated after I reopened my recruitment and said, 'what do I really want in a school?' With the Under-19s in Australia coming up, I needed people to actually push me like at an international level and really fight for positions. I don't want to just take it easy, I want to work for my spot on the team and really challenge and see where my basketball can take me."
Clarke determined that she can get the level of competition to prepare for international play in Boulder, both with her teammates in practice at CU, and on a game-by-game basis in the Pac-12 Conference.
But if not for the changes at UCSB, Clarke never would have stepped foot on campus in Boulder and perhaps would not have had the opportunity to build her game at a Power Five school. She visited Santa Barbara in January and really liked the coaching staff and players, giving a verbal commitment shortly after her visit.
After a shake up in the coaching staff and some turnover on the roster, Clarke decided to reopen her recruitment. Within a day, CU assistant coach Toriano Towns was on the phone with her, a call that lasted two hours.
"Coach T just got to know me, asked me how I am, what do I do, what do I like in school, basketball questions, and what I look for in a school and he just said they really wanted to have me here," Clarke said. "A few days later, Coach J [Payne] called and we Facetimed and it was kind of the same, just getting to know them. It was really easy [to talk to them].
"When I heard from them, I just researched on the internet and called a few people and I was just overwhelmed with how amazing this university was because it was never in my prospects. I was just like, 'wow, this Pac-12 school wants me.' I just never envisioned that I would go to such a high-profile school with such amazing coaches...I had heard lots of good reviews about CU—[it's in the] Pac-12, [has] amazing coaches, a good program, and a good vision of where they want to go and the program that they're trying to make. They're in a nice area. It's like Australia, but just missing the beach."
Since the CU coaches had yet to see Clarke play in person, they had to do their own research on her. Jeff Cammon, who was an assistant at CU under Payne in 2016-17, recruited Clarke to play at Long Beach State, where he finished his first season as head coach in 2017-18. He gave Payne a strong recommendation.
"We were very excited to learn about Emma because she came to highly recommended by people that we really trust," Payne said. "Jeff said, 'You will LOVE her! She's your kind of player.' That has definitely turned out to be true. Jeff is a fantastic recruiter and knows our system and style very well. When he called and told us how much we would love Emma, I was instantly excited about her potential."
The beach is the one thing, besides her family, that Clarke misses from home. In fact, it was one of her top factors in her initial list of schools she considered. Nearly every school was located near a beach in California, including Long Beach State and UCSB. When the Buffs came calling, she realized that it might be a nice change of pace to live in Colorado's breathtaking Rocky Mountains for a few years, a half hour Denver, and in the center of the United States.
It's a stark contrast from Perth, known as the second-most isolated major city in the world because it is a five-hour flight from the nearest major city. But it is also a beautiful city along white sand beaches and turquoise waters, located on the southwest coast of Australia on the Indian Ocean. The natural beauty was the common denominator.
"In Perth, I'm like a five-minute walk from the beach, which is really nice," Clarke said. "But I chose CU because the environment is so clean, there's trees everywhere, the sky is blue, there's mountains, which is different, and it's a change of scenery. I thought I'll probably never live in snow and see snow ever again, so these four years are like a big change diversity-wise."
Just to clarify, this coming winter will not be her first experience seeing snow. Clarke has seen it before when visiting parts of the eastern half of Australia, though she admitted most of it was man-made. But she has never lived in a place where it has snowed.
Clarke is extremely close with her family, but she said the transition to CU will not be as hard as it might normally be to leave home and go across the world. That's because she spent 2017 at the Australian Institute of Sport's Centre of Excellence as one of 12 players in the country selected for a basketball scholarship. She had to move across the country to Canberra, located in Australian Capital Territory, an hour from the southeastern coast.
Her family made her year away at the institute much easier.
"My dad and my family set me up really well before I left and they gave me all of the skills and tools I needed to succeed," Clarke said. "My dad is like my idol and such an influence on me as a person. And my mum's amazing too. I don't know how I would have done that transition without them, or made this transition, just knowing they're at home and they've got my back and they're always there when I need them. That made it a lot easier, just knowing the support is there."
She joked that her younger brother, who is 9, has already moved into her room.
These next four years should be similar to her year away from home in 2017, but across the world instead of across the country. So far, it has been a smooth transition. Clarke mentioned the coaches, upperclassmen Alexis Robinson and Quinessa Caylao-Do, and her fellow freshman have all been huge in helping her feel at home.
The other four freshmen are like sisters to her.
"We're all pretty close and we always hang out together," Clarke said. "We make sure everyone's okay, doing our schoolwork together, coming to get extra shots. We go out sometimes to The Hill, or we just go on drives up in the mountains and the views up there are really nice."
Her biggest challenge so far has been going back to school. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia's academic year ends in November ahead of their summer, so Clarke has been out of school for over half a year. But her professors and academic advisors have been helpful in her transition back to the classroom.
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