Image credit: @jlgphotographics
Clive Weeden dedicated himself to giving everything to South West Slammers one last time in 2025 even if he misses reaching 200 games by not playing on, but the rewards come with nights like Friday's breakthrough win.
Having had a Tasmanian born mother, Weeden always wanted to get to Australia and basketball provided him that opportunity where he had the option of joining the Mount Gambier Pioneers or the South West Slammers.
Weeden had already tried playing internationally in Macedonia and Tunisia after his college career with Dartmouth College and having grown up in Boston, and he chose the Slammers back in 2013 and has never played anywhere else since.
The 37-year-old has become the heart and soul of the Slammers over the last 13 years as well and while work life and his three kids have taken up plenty of his focus in recent seasons, he rededicated himself to one full-hearted effort in 2025.
It hasn’t been easy going with the Slammers not breaking through for a first win until last Friday night against the Cockburn Cougars, but Weeden played a key role in that victory. It was a reminder of how much the club means to not only him, but so many in the community.
Wanting to have one last run
With Weeden not playing at the Slammers in the 2019 and 2022 seasons, and then playing just 21 games over the past two years, what he committed to in 2025 for new coach Jason Chalk was that he was going to give it everything.
That was always with the likelihood that the 2025 season would be the last for Weeden. He still is leaning to that being the case even with the lure of a 200-game milestone to earn Slammers life membership if he played on next year with him currently sitting at 188.
"It's always a body versus mind scenario and most of the time that I stopped previously it wasn’t because I wanted to stop playing so that was the thing for me coming back this year," Weeden told The Hoop Hour on 91.3 SportFM.
"I decided that if I was going to do it I'd do it with everything I have, and for good or bad I'm doing that. I think realistically, I'm happy that this could be my last run even though the body is feeling great when I'm out there running around.
"I still feel like I'm making an impact on the floor and hopefully that's more positive than impact, but it will be some sort of impact regardless.
"Realistically I think this would be my last go at it even though I love the idea of having 200 games to be a life member of this amazing club, and I feel like that's something that would be really cool to be able to tell my kids about when they're at an age to understand what that means.
"But I think going forward, I would really just be playing to get life membership and the type of player I am, I want to be out there for the right reasons and giving everything that I can for the guys around me. I think I could go on longer, but I think it might also be time."
Breaking through for first 2025 win
It hadn’t been the season so far in 2025 that Weeden or anyone at the Slammers had been hoping for with losing the opening 13 matches, but last Friday night did present an opportunity on their home floor.
The Cockburn Cougars arrived to Eaton Recreation Centre on their own eight-game losing run and in the end it was the big men combination at the Slammers of Jamal Poplar and Weeden that were big factors in the breakthrough first win of 2025.
Poplar delivered 35 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals. Weeden chimed in with five points and five rebounds to win the coaches award afterwards, and to make it a memorable night at home.
"It's great for the team as a whole and obviously for myself, I can only keep going around for so many times and it's a good feeling to be part of a win like that," Weeden said.
"Just seeing the joy and speaking to the people around the club after the game, it really does mean a lot not just from the playing group but to the greater Slammers community."
Still being able to contribute
What Weeden wanted to make sure when he committed himself to playing on in 2025 was that he would actually be able to contribute and to be content with the knowledge that he was giving the Slammers all he had to offer for at least this one last season.
That's what made that win last Friday night in front of their home fans mean so much for Weeden and everyone involved at the Slammers.
"That honestly means a lot to me and when I had the chat to Chalky about coming around again this year, I expressed to him that the last couple of times that I've been out and still played a bit, it's been more to just help the side when they didn’t have depth at the centre position or with experience," Weeden said.
"I don’t think I was fully invested and I said if I was going to go around again it would be by doing every part of the pre-season and putting every part of myself into this to give it what I can.
"I never know what I'm going to be able to give each game, but I know they are going to get every ounce of effort out of me, as much as defence as I can and then anything I can produce at the offensive end I'm feeling happy and confident to do.
"To be able to help down the stretch in that game in particular felt really good."
Journey to Slammers to start with
Tracing all the way back to 2013 when Weeden first arrived in Bunbury to join the Slammers, he had no idea it would be where he would end up settling his life and raising his three kids that have all born in Australia.
However, Weeden had always wanted to come down under given his mother was born in Tasmania and in a basketball sense that gave him the advantage of not being an import in the then SBL competition.
He almost landed at the Mount Gambier Pioneers of the then SEABL competition who are now part of NBL1 South. But it was the Western Australian weather that got the Slammers over the line, and he's never looked back.
"I think it really just comes down to community why I've stayed," Weeden said.
"It was a bit of a luck of the draw getting here in the first place, but it was always a bit of a goal to get to Australia because my mum was born in Tasmania.
"So this was my opportunity to get here and I had offers from Bunbury and from Mount Gambier, and I just looked at the weather and said I'll go to Bunbury. Then having that first season here, I never had more fun playing basketball than I did playing under Ty Harrelson and with those guys that are now brothers to me."
While Weeden loved the lifestyle he found himself living in the south west of WA, ultimately what won him over as being the place to settle was the unwavering support from his new Slammers team even while dealing with some of the hardest times of his life in that first season.
"But also in that first season, I had a lot of family things go on that the team stood by me through. I had both my father and grandfather pass so I had to jet home a couple of times," Weeden said.
"Once I was home for 48 hours and that was it after all that travel. Then even when we made the playoffs for the first time in 13 years, I had to leave the day before it started.
"I wanted to stay and play that first game, but everyone on the team just wouldn’t let me and told me that I had to get back home.
"So having that type of support even when it might not have been best for the team showed me that it was a place I wanted to come back to for a second season, then a third, fourth and I'm still here. I fell in love with the people and the community, and the Bunbury and the south west in general."
Having to watch last Grand Final
After missing that finals appearance in 2013 because of having to return home, Weeden also missed the run of the Slammers into the 2015 grand final where they ultimately would lose to the Joondalup Wolves.
However, it was a team that Weeden will never forget being part of even if it was incredibly tough having to watch the entire playoff run from his lounge room after rupturing his ACL and destroying his knee to close the regular season.
"To have to watch the team be so successful while I'm cheering from the couch was so rewarding and so hard all at the same time," Weeden said.
"I don’t think I realised how hard it was until after it was done, but it was literally the fourth quarter of the game before the playoffs that I tore my meniscus and my ACL so I made sure to do a good job.
"I thought that first year was the most fun I ever had playing basketball and it just got better and better. That year in 2015 just culminated with the best group of guys that wanted to go to war for each other, and were also good at basketball so it was win wins all round."
Another memorable season
The Slammers had another memorable team back in 2017 under the coaching of Charles Nix with Weeden joined by the likes of Tre Nichols, Michael Lay, Travis Durnin, Brian Voelkel, Chris Douglas and Teny Puot.
That team made a stirring run into the playoffs before one of the best three-game series you would ever like to see in the first round against a Perth Redbacks team with the likes of Shawn Redhage, Joel Wagner, Michael Vigor, Marshall Nelson, Zac Gattorna, Ben Smith and Lee Roberts who went on to win the championship.
There's every reason that could have been the Slammers had they prevailed in that Game 3 at Belmont Oasis with precious little separating the teams, but it's a season Weeden still reflects on fondly in what is their last playoff appearance.
"Nixy was a man and a coach that I had run into in my first year here and we just got on like a house on fire," Weeden said.
"We were two likeminded individuals that had passion for the people around them and the sport as a whole, and liked to enjoy their time doing it.
"So to finally link up and him coming down to Bunbury, stoked is an understatement for how I felt. Then to see even in the pre-season the difference he was making in the club and the direction he was taking us, it was going to be something special and it's definitely the one that got away.
"Playing against the Redbacks in that series, we fully had the thought that if we could beat them we were capable of winning the whole thing. Every part of that whole team Nixy had us running through a wall for each other, and it was a special season to look back on with that group as tight as tight can be."
Slammers getting back to success
It has been rough going for the Slammers ever since that 2017 playoff appearance and in the eight-and-a-half seasons since they have only won 27 of their 166 matches.
What Weeden sees as key to the Slammers trying to get back where they were early in his career and then even back their dynasty days of the 1990s is multi-faceted.
The first is trying to keep local talent at the Slammers and right now if Brody England, Travis Durnin and Matt Leary were still on board rather than being part of Warwick, Rockingham and Perry Lakes then it could make the world of difference.
Beyond that and Weeden feels stability is also key not only with the playing roster, but also with the coaching staff and right throughout the club. He does hope they are starting to get things back on track for what is always a supportive community.
"I haven’t had the ultimate success here like they had in the late 90s, but I've been seen pretty close to that and then quite the opposite so I've seen both sides of it and I've only played for the Slammers here," Weeden said.
"I can't compare it to other clubs, but the passion that's for this club and the people that are in it, is just about unmatched.
"To have people that will give up so much time, so much effort and all of themselves from the volunteers, the board members, the players and the coaches with a team that is 0-12, that passion is still there in spades.
"You also only have to look around the league at players who have come from down there and you can see that the talent pool is here.