Bob Buckley and Bears Tomorrow Program Featured in The Examiner

April 1, 2021

White, Graham, Buckley & Carr partner Bob Buckley and his William Chrisman High School Bears Tomorrow Program were recently featured in an Examiner article, Team’s Success Has Been Built For Years, On and Off Court, about the William Chrisman Bears’ girls basketball team, which progressed to the state final four for the first time since 1993.

Buckley, along with friends and coaches Rob Barnes and Rob Sandberg, founded the Bears Tomorrow basketball program in 2007 and since then he’s impacted the lives of more than 300 future William Chrisman High School students.

The Examiner outlines how Buckley’s William Chrisman High School Bears Tomorrow Program provides not only basketball fundamentals, but also life skills to elementary school boys and girls who will attend William Chrisman. Buckley told The Examiner, “Most of the current team was in kindergarten when we played that first game [in 2007]. Bears Tomorrow has been blessed with outstanding coaches, many of whom are my best friends.”

“Bob has always been a father figure for me,” senior guard Gia Moore told The Examiner. “I was introduced to basketball by the Bears Tomorrow, and I always felt so fortunate because I felt like I had two fathers, my biological father, and Bob. He loved each and every one of us like we were members of his family.”

This isn’t, of course, Buckley’s only activity with William Chrisman High School; he has been the school’s Booster Club president for five years and is president of the Independence School District Foundation. He and his wife, Kim, also fund annual scholarships for graduating seniors of William Chrisman and have made several donations to the school’s athletic program. For more than 20 years, Buckley also has served as the voice of the William Chrisman Bears; he serves as the announcer for both the football and boys’ varsity basketball teams for the Independence-based high school.