Bill Cleary was hired as Assistant Athletic Director and Head Women's Basketball Coach in August 2021 by St. Thomas Aquinas College Director of Athletics Nicole Ryan.

Cleary comes to Sparkill from Division I Colgate University, where he served as the Women's Basketball Head Coach from 2016-2021. Before his time with the Raiders, he spent eight seasons (2008-2016) as the Head Women's Basketball Coach at Division II Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania and five seasons (2003-2008) as the Head Women's Basketball Coach with Division II Wilmington University in Delaware. Coach Cleary has amassed a record of 269-233 over 18 prior seasons.

COLGATE

The Raiders in 2019-20 posted a remarkable season – arguably the second-best in team history. Colgate finished 19-11 for the most regular season wins and second-most wins overall. Only the 2003-04 Patriot League champions did it better at 21-10.

It was just the second winning season in 33 years of Division I play. The next best record was 14-14 back in 1990-91.
 
Cleary’s charges fashioned a 6½-game improvement over the previous season's record and finished above .500 in the Patriot League for just the third time at 11-7. Colgate’s third-place finish resulted in Cotterell Court hosting its first Patriot League Tournament Quarterfinal matchup.
 
The third-place finish was the program’s best in 16 years, harking back to the 2003-04 Raiders sweeping their way to the program’s only regular season and tournament championships. It marked just the third time a Colgate team finished over .500 in 30 Patriot League seasons.
 
A postseason invitation to the WNIT was a possibility for the Raiders before all sports seasons were halted by a coronavirus outbreak.

Colgate led the Patriot League in 2019-20 in scoring offense (69.1), assists (16.8), assist-to-turnover ratio (1.2) and turnover margin (+4.3). Other records of note from 2019-20 included:
 
Before the success of his fourth season, Cleary guided the Raiders to a pair sixth-place finishes -- despite preseason prognostications of near the bottom of the Patriot League standings.

In 2018-19, the Raiders finished 12-17 overall for their best win total since 2004-05. Colgate also jumped to 8-10 in the Patriot League for its highest victory total and best winning percentage since 2003-04.

In Cleary's first season of 2016-17, the Raiders clinched sixth place in the Patriot League standings for the first time since 2011-12.

BLOOMSBURG & WILMINGTON

Cleary built programs from the ground up at Wilmington (Delaware) and Bloomsburg (Pennsylvania) in the NCAA Division II ranks before being named Colgate head coach in March 2016.

During his eight-year tenure at Bloomsburg, Cleary compiled a 164-69 (.704) overall record and a 97-42 (.698) mark in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference. The Huskies won just eight games the year before Cleary’s arrival, but he put together four consecutive NCAA tournament appearances from 2012-15, a PSAC title and five straight PSAC East Division crowns.

Four Straight NCAA Berths
Bloomsburg’s 102 wins during that four-year NCAA run were the most in school history, and the 2012 NCAA tournament bid was the program’s first in 20 years.

Cleary during his time at Bloomsburg coached four PSAC East players of the year and four freshman of the year honorees.

Awards weren’t limited to the student-athletes under Cleary, who three times was named PSAC East Coach of the Year and in 2015 earned WBCA Atlantic Region Coach of the Year. That season, he guided the Huskies to a 26-5 overall mark and a 20-2 record in the PSAC. The campaign ended in heartbreaking fashion at the NCAA regional final, a 72-69 overtime decision at the hands of eventual national champion California (Pa.) on the Cal home court.
 
During his eight years at Bloomsburg, Cleary recruited and coached six 1,000-point scorers.
 
The first head-coaching position for Cleary was at Wilmington (Del.), where he turned around another struggling program. The Wildcats in Cleary’s first season of 2003-04 won two games for the sixth straight season. Four years later, Wilmington went 22-9 and captured an ECAC Division II title for its first championship in school history.

PHILADELPHIA ROOTS
A native of the Philadelphia suburb of Broomall, Cleary began his career with one season as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Towson and two years as a men’s basketball graduate assistant at Georgia Tech under Paul Hewitt. While in Atlanta, Cleary earned his master's degree in sports administration from Georgia State University in 2002.

Cleary is a 1998 graduate of Villanova University with a degree in political science. He and his wife, Jackie, are the parents of sons Billy and Chase.