THUNDER BAY – Paige Crozon brought her Olympic-level basketball skills to Kingsway Park Public School on Tuesday.
Crozon, who was part of the silver medal-winning Canadian women’s 3x3 basketball team at the Paris Olympics this past summer, ran an on-court basketball clinic with Grade 5 and 6 students through the Canadian Tire Jumpstart program. She’ll be attending other Lakehead Public Schools this week.
In addition to basketball skills, Crozon also hopes to provide some inspiration by sharing her experiences, particularly her journey to the Olympics.
“I just feel so fortunate to have been given so much in basketball and through sport and how it’s carried over into my life,” Crozon said. “It’s really important for me to try to pay that forward and try to give back because I just know how integral sport has been.”
By Crozon’s side in the Kingsway gym was her young daughter Poppy, who was signing autographs alongside her mom.
“More than anything, I want for her to have an amazing group of friends like I found in my teammates,” said Crozon. “Just having her has added some resiliency into my life but it’s also just provided a different perspective.”
Crozon also hopes to show the students a “high-performance pathway” by someone that has been in their position.
“I have taken the steps to try to achieve my Olympic dream,” she said. “I feel so honoured and privileged to have the silver medal coming back from the Paris Olympics and even more honoured now to have the platform to be able to come into schools and work with kids and tell them all my experience.”
A few students had the chance to take on Crozon in one-on-one matches and Grade 6 student Scarlett Garrett was able to score on the Olympian.
The basket took Scarlett by surprise.
“That felt almost like a one in a million chance,” she said, adding she’s definitely trying out for the school basketball team this year.
