(Photo by Heywood Yu/COC)

By Ben Tompkins

Visting schools, fostering the next generation

Crozon returns home for early Olympic Day celebration

Jun 8, 2025 | 6:35 PM

Humboldt native Paige Crozon came back to her hometown earlier this week to celebrate Olympic Day.

Crozon visited Humboldt Public School to coach, play and speak to students as a 3×3 Women’s Basketball Olympian.

“They requested that I come and pay a visit to the school, so I got to celebrate Olympic day with them, most of the students wore red and white, and I spoke at a school assembly. I also did a basketball camp for the grade three and grade four classes, and then I actually scrimmaged against the students in grades five through eight for the last portion of the day,” she told northeastNOW.

“We had a lot of fun, there was so much energy and excitement in the gym, and it was just such a pleasure to be back in my hometown and giving back, especially in this space, which used to be the old high school gym that means so much to me, and I had spent so much time there growing up.”

Although Olympic Day is celebrated globally on June 23rd, Crozon had to celebrate it a bit earlier in Humboldt, because she will be a little busy on that day.

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Crozon is headed to Mongolia on Friday for a FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series Stop, which will then be followed by the FIBA 3×3 World Cup, also in Mongolia.

For the Humboldt native, this wasn’t her first school visit, and it definitely won’t be her last.

“At the end of 2024, I went to St Dominic School, which is the elementary school that I attended when I was growing up, and then on Monday, I went to the Humboldt Collegiate Institute, the High School in Humboldt, and I was their guest speaker at their athletic day banquet,” Crozon added.

“Since I got home from the Olympics, I’ve done a series of school visits, many throughout Saskatchewan, and so now this week I’m going to the communities of Prince Albert, Muskoday and Beardy’s & Okemasis, to go into their schools and do a basketball clinic with some of their classes. I’ll also just share my story and try to provide some inspiration and some things that I’ve learned along the way throughout my basketball career, especially coming from Saskatchewan.”

Always alongside Crozon is her daughter, Poppy, who has become her ‘assistant coach of sorts’.

(Photo by Heywood Yu/COC)

“When she’s in the gym, she has a very calming presence and also very disarming, because she’s so joyful and warm and welcoming. She helps everyone, encourages everyone to participate and is just a light in all the spaces that she’s been,” concluded Crozon.

“It makes me really proud to come back, I think that I have been given so much for my career and have received so much support that has allowed me to get to the Olympics or the platforms that I’ve been able to play at. It’s really important for me to kind of pay that forward, or, I guess, give that back and provide the same kind of inspiration and support that I was given when growing up.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8