Visitor from the Basketball Hall of Fame

The Club was delighted to welcome Rotarian Paul Lambert, Basketball Hall of Fame Vice President of Enshrinement Services & Community Engagement, from Springfield RC, Massachusetts, USA to the meeting Monday 21 May. He was accompanied by Maria Jardin from Portugal, whose Belfast based charity works with Paul Lambert . 

Presenting a banner, he noted that he came from Springfield - and regaled the meeting with the story behind the birth of Basketball there. He advised he was in Belfast because the Basketball Hall of Fame were using sport positively to reach out to young people and noted that the Belfast schools were willing partners. He revealed that Belfast had hosted the first ever competitive US college basketball tournament outside America last year at the SSE Arena and that a 2nd tournament would be announced tomorrow. The event received world-wide attention so this year it will feature 8 Division 1 teams (4 last year) over 2 mini tournaments and be broadcast by CBS. He concluded that he was delighted to work as partners in Belfast.