Being a Warrior taught us the importance of discipline and hard work. Even now, my dad ends his emails with ‘Always a Warrior.’
MICHAEL CROSBY (BA ’05), SON OF CAM CROSBY (BSc ’74)
Being a Warrior taught us the importance of discipline and hard work. Even now, my dad ends his emails with ‘Always a Warrior.’
MICHAEL CROSBY (BA ’05), SON OF CAM CROSBY (BSc ’74)
ALWAYS A WARRIOR
It was 1974 and the Waterloo Warriors men’s hockey team had just clinched the CIAU championship. Assistant Captain Cam Crosby (BSc ’74), a veteran of the Toronto Marlboros and Kitchener Rangers, helped lead the team to the win. It was Waterloo’s first-ever national title.
Victory was sweet. But Cam says that it’s the relationships he built with his teammates that he treasures most from those days. Those friendships ultimately inspired the largest single gift in Waterloo Athletics & Recreation history. The resulting endowed award will enable future Warriors to benefit from their varsity hockey experience, long after the final buzzer sounds.
Growing up, Cam’s son Michael (BA ’05) witnessed the bond between his dad’s teammates. He experienced it himself when he joined Waterloo’s men’s varsity basketball team, where he was named Rookie of the Year in the 1995-96 season.
Michael is the grandson of Gordon Crosby, founder of the family business, Crosby Auto Group. Gordon was himself an athlete; he sprinted for Canada in the 1952 Olympics and appreciated the life-enhancing benefits of sport.
Knowing how much Cam’s experience at Waterloo meant to him, Gordon wanted to establish an athletics award at the University in his son’s name. Sadly, he never got the opportunity to create the award before he passed away. Instead, his grandson made it happen, establishing the Cam Crosby Hockey Excellence Award with a $250,000 gift to Warriors men’s hockey.
“It’s immensely rewarding to know that, in some way, we might be assisting some other student-athletes on their own journeys,” Michael says. “If this award enables somebody to attend Waterloo who might not otherwise be able to, that would be incredible. And if it provides resources to help the team be more successful, that would be great too.”
Assistant captain Cam Crosby (left) helped lead the hockey team to Waterloo's first national championship.
Cam says he was humbled to learn of the gift Michael made in his honour. But he’s excited to think of the opportunities it will offer to future hockey Warriors. Most of all, he says, “I hope they get to experience the camaraderie that we did as a team.”
“Being a Warrior taught us the importance of discipline and hard work,” Michael adds. “Even now, my dad ends his emails with ‘Always a Warrior.’”
