May 26, 2023
The Canadian Sport Centre Saskatchewan is saddened to learn of the sudden passing of national wrestling team member Natasha Fox (nee Kramble).
Fox, a mother of two, passed away Wednesday in Saskatoon.
Fox was one of Saskatchewan’s top amateur wrestlers for nearly two decades, dating back to 2006 when she won her first of three consecutive high school provincial championships while competing for Saskatoon’s Walter Murray Collegiate.
After finishing high school in 2008, Fox was quick to find success at the post-secondary level as well.
In 2009, as a rookie with the University of Saskatchewan Huskie wrestling team, Fox won a Canada West conference bronze medal en route to a fourth-place finish at national championships. In 2011 she reached the national university podium by winning a bronze medal, and repeated the feat in 2012. She added two Canada West gold medals and two silver medals. Fox’s varsity career was capped in 2013 when she represented Canada at the World University Games in Russia, ultimately placing fourth in her weight class.
From there, Fox decided to test herself against the world.
She placed second at the 2013 and 2016 Pan-American Wrestling Championships, won bronze at the world championships in 2017 and was selected as an RBC Olympian in 2017 with an eye toward qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Summer Games. On the national level, Fox won gold at Wrestling Canada’s senior championships in 2016 and 2018, to go along with a second-place finish in 2017.
Fox was a multiple-time Future Best and Saskatchewan Program for Athletic Excellence recipient.
In an interview with CBC Sports for a 2018 documentary, Fox talked about the impact of wrestling on her life.
“That’s what wrestling’s like,” she said. “It puts you in really tough situations and I feel like you learn a lot of life lessons really quickly in this microcosm of life that we have here. And it’s like, if you can handle that stress it’s so valuable. I feel like … in my daily life now, I’m so much better for having wrestled and for having these experiences.”
More than words, it was a sentiment Fox wanted others to experience as well.
“Part of my journey has been really focused on giving back,” she told CBC Saskatoon in 2017, shortly after being named an RBC Olympian.
Fox convocated from USask with degrees in kinesiology and education. That led her to a teaching job in Saskatoon, but also to the other side of the sport that gave her so much. She coached a wrestling team and started a wrestling tournament in her hometown for youth aged 5-12.
Fox also delivered motivational speeches, like in 2018 when she attended a banner-raising ceremony for a fellow high school provincial champion in Meadow Lake.
“For me, it’s extremely meaningful to be here,” Kramble told the Meadow Lake Northern Pride. “Wrestling is a sport that doesn’t get a lot of publicity or glory. Nobody wrestles for those reasons, but to be able to be present when young wrestlers are being recognized by their entire school is huge.”
Fox was 33 years old.