Long Island’s high-scoring Leary family adds another 1,000-point scorer to its ranks
This family doesn’t miss.
Ryan Leary, a varsity basketball player for the Carle Place Frogs, recently notched the impressive milestone of 1,000 career points.
Making the moment even more magical for the junior, he joined his three older sisters and mother as the latest family member to hit the overwhelming achievement.
“When I saw that shot go in, it was such a crazy experience,” Leary, a 16-year-old shooting guard with ambitions to play in college, told The Post. “It only happened because of all the work that me, my sisters, and my parents all put in during the offseason,” he added of his Dec. 30 feat, which came against Malverne.
All three of Leary’s sisters are college basketball players. Erin, his oldest, is a senior at Iona College; Amanda, his middle sister, is a junior at Springfield College; and Caitlin, the youngest, is a freshman at Mercy University.
“Everything I learned was from watching and working out with them. All of them would give me tips on my jump shot,” he said, recalling that they always train together when home from school.
Leary, who was first called up as an eighth grader, gladly accepted the tutelage. He now holds the family record as the fastest to 1,000.
“I don’t bust their chops too much, but if they say something to me first, I’ll remind them of that,” he kidded.
Jokes aside, the family’s matriarch, Karin Leary, told The Post her kids are inseparable and use their achievements to motivate each other. She netted her thousand points as a senior at Baldwin High School in 1989, and was not shocked to see her youngest succeed similarly.
“We were all ready for it to happen [with Ryan]. It’s unbelievable that all four did it,” she said.
Karin also mentioned that she gave her son advice from the bleachers about shooting.
Like Erin, Karin later played for Iona and now works as a physical education teacher at East Rockaway High School. Fittingly enough, she coached three players to score 1,000 points during her past tenure with the high school’s girls basketball team.
It was only when recently verbalizing all the accomplishments that Mrs. 1,000 realized the uncanniness of working with seven other quadruple-digit scorers.
“I guess this whole thing is pretty unique and pretty cool,” she laughed.
Ryan, also a state champion soccer player at Carle Place, accurately predicted which game he would reach 1K about a week before it happened. Before that, however, there were some midseason jitters his oldest sister helped him get over.
“I told him, ‘It’s going to happen when it’s going to happen; just keep playing your game,’ ” Erin, who saw her brother score the milestone in the stands, told The Post. “I was so excited for him when he got it. That was such a proud big sister moment that I almost cried.”
As a unit, the Learys’ passion for basketball is palpable.
The family often invites younger children in their town over for free clinics in their backyard, and Karin recalls Ryan once shoveling their outdoor court during a snowstorm to practice free throws. When Leary becomes a senior, he also wants to use his upcoming 12th-grade research project as a chance to coach more kids at basketball, he said.
“We have to drag Ryan in at night so he doesn’t disturb the neighborhood bouncing the ball,” his father, Patrick Leary, told The Post.
Although their dad is a former college soccer player at Fairfield University and one of Ryan’s state champion soccer coaches, he still gets playfully teased as the only household member without the record.
As Ryan and the Frogs gear up for the postseason, he has two goals for the rest of his high school playing days. First, he wants to surpass 1,466 points to become the school’s all-time scoring leader. If that fails, Leary wants to shatter Caitlin’s record of 1,357.
“Maybe I would bust her chops about it for a day, but nothing crazy,” he said. “They’ve all been so supportive of me on my journey.”
World News || Latest News || U.S. News
Source link
