In the past, APR Basketball Club used to dominate the local league thanks to a bulk of foreign players, mainly from DR Congo. But the club has since changed the policy and uses only homegrown talents. 

In this issue, Saturday Sport profiles the Kenyan-born Level II coaching license holder, Cliff Owuor, who has been in charge of the Rwandan outfit since 2005.

Playing career

Owuor started playing basketball during his primary school days. When he joined secondary, he was already good enough to take part in high school inter-schools’ championships before moving to provincial and second division league. He later stormed the topflight national league in his native Kenya.

His first Kenyan premier division club was Moi Airbase basketball club, which he joined in 1993 and featured for the team for two years before picking a career-threatening knee injury in 1995. The injury kept him out of action for five years but it did not kill his love for basketball. He delved into coaching when he was barely 22 years old as he waited to recover from his injury.

 "After the injury, I never thought I would play basketball on a professional level again. It took me five years to recover, I returned and won titles,” narrates the former University of Nairobi student.

In early 2002, when he had fully recovered from the injury, he signed for Post Bank Basketball Club for two seasons (2002- 2003).

During his two-year spell at Post Bank, he helped the club to win the league title in 2002 and Fiba Africa Eastern-Central Club Championships (currently Zone Five) title in 2003 in Kampala, Uganda.

After the 2003 season, Owuor officially retired from playing to concentrate on his budding coaching career and since then, he has gone on to win multiple titles with different clubs in Kenya and APR in Rwanda.

Coaching career

Before returning to playing in 2002, Owuor had coached Ulinzi Basketball Club from 1999 to late 2001 and won Kenyan league titles in 2000 and 2001.

He also led the team to the African Military Games Men’s Basketball title in 2002 in Nairobi, beating Primeiro de Agosto of Angola in the final.

On his return to coaching, he coached KCITI team and led his former school to the national colleges’ league title in 2004 before joining national league side Stomers Spirit, a side he coached during the 2004/2005 season.

Move to APR

"I am very happy at APR; you can understand why I have been around for the past ten years. I and the club have ambitions to achieve and all is going according to plan. We have won several local and regional titles and I can guarantee that very soon we shall be back to our dominant ways,” the 41-year-old told Saturday Sport.

He also explained why his club has been underperforming since 2011,”We didn’t collapse as such. Since 2011 we decided to nurture our own local talent and turn them into professionals, unlike in the past when we used to hire foreign players, who didn’t benefit the national team.”

Since his arrival at APR in mid 2005, Owuor has led the army side to four regular season league titles—in 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2010 as well as the play-offs trophies in all those years. He also helped the black and white outfit to claim the 2008 Fiba Africa Zone Five title.

The former Kenyan international also guided APR to the 2011 play-offs title as well as first runner-up spot in regular league behind Kigali Basketball Club.

Current squad

Former point-guard Owuor, who is coaching APR for his eleventh season, has utmost confidence is the current youthful squad and tipped the youngsters to shine and start winning titles.

 "We have been improving season-in season-out since 2012, we are better-off today and we are in a position of winning titles in the next few seasons. Of course lack of maturity and confidence is still a problem but it’s a psychological issue and can easily be addressed.”

He also noted that it is a bit too early to expect a relatively inexperienced APR to win the league this year but, "That doesn’t mean we cannot put up a formidable challenge.”

After four rounds of matches this season, APR currently lead the league table with 7 points.

 They won the opening game 58-52 over UGB, lost the second 62-63 to league newcomers Patriots but quickly bounced back with two convincing victories 83-54 over UR- CASS and 78-59 against CSK respectively last weekend.

Coaching clinics attended

In 1998, he attended his maiden international coaching clinic at University of Arizona, USA for six months under former USA national team coach Lute Olson.

In 2000, he underwent another clinic at Texas Technology University for one month under Bobby Knight, another former USA national team coach.

Between 2000 and 2010, Owuor revealed that he travelled to the U.S more than six times to attend Athletes in Action (AIA) clinics.

Who is Owuor?

Born on March 10, 1973 in Kisumu, western Kenya, Owuor is married to Christine (Owuor) and the couple has been blessed with two kids, one son (Kobe) and one daughter (Wanda).

He attended Nyabondo Boys primary school, Kisumu Boys high school and Kenya Industrial Training Institute (KICTI) before switching to University of Nairobi pursuing Public Relations, Guidance and Counseling where he attained a Bachelor’s degree in 2002.

The former Kenya international, who turns 42 next month, is a basketball addict and told this paper that he can’t imagine life without basketball.

He is a diehard fan of Miami Heat in NBA and Kobe Bryant and Lebron James are his favourite players. In football, he is a supporter of English Premier League side Chelsea FC while Didier Drogba and Nemanja Matic are his favourite stars.