Business brains and basketball brawns

How Paige Clausen balances her life as a UF basketball player and a Warrington Master of Science in Finance student.

Playing on the University of Florida’s basketball team is a dream come true for Paige Clausen (BSBA ’24, MSF ’25).

She grew up in Maryland, and moved to Naples, Florida in high school. She started playing the sport around 5 years old.

“My brothers and me would play outside every day,” Clausen said. “So that’s where I first got my love for basketball.

Around the same time, 5-year-old Clausen and her brothers would pretend to be business owners. Clausen remembers one business she “started” called Sweet Salon, where she would offer family members massages for money.

Her passion for basketball and entrepreneurship, cultivated from an early age, led her to apply to be a business student at UF.

However, Clausen didn’t make the basketball team her freshman year.

“I would go to the games with my friends, and I remember I’d be like, man, I wish that was me,” Clausen said. 

At the same time, Clausen joined the Gators Student Investment Fund, where she participated in stock pitch competitions and gained experience in the communications, media and entertainment sector.

“That’s where I realized that it was something that I was really passionate about and wanted to continue,” Clausen said.

Although she wasn’t on the basketball team, Clausen would still play pickup at the Southwest Recreation Center where she met a lot of people.

“My friends that I made along the way convinced me to reach out again and see if I was able to join.”

After the 2021-2022 basketball season ended, Clausen reached out to a contact she had about trying out for the team.

“They didn’t tell me what that tryout would look like,” Clausen said. “So, I didn’t know until I got there.”

The tryout was successful, and Clausen ended up walking onto the team as a sophomore.

As a student athlete, she dedicates about 40 hours per week to trainings, meetings and traveling during the season.

Clausen said her experience juggling basketball and her business degree has helped better prepare her for a career in the finance industry.

“The lifestyle, getting used to working hard, is definitely helpful,” she said. “I’m used to balancing things under pressure.”

In the summer of 2023, Clausen received a full scholarship to play for the Gators.

“I never thought that I would ever be able to, like, be on scholarship for a school such as UF,” she said. “Just the fact that it was able to happen was just such an amazing experience.”

This past summer, Clausen interned at RBC Capital Markets in New York where she was offered a full-time position upon graduation.

While she doesn’t plan to play professionally, Clausen would still like to incorporate her love for sports in her future career somehow, such as doing finance work for a sports team or going into the sports private equity sector.

Clausen will play as a shooting guard this season. She finished the last season shooting 33% from the field. Clausen matched a career-high two points at Georgia Tech on Nov. 29, 2023, and tied a career-high against Florida A&M on Nov. 13, 2023 with just eight minutes played.

“I think we have a great team, and we’re gonna go out and surprise a lot of people.”

Clausen’s advice to fellow students is this: “Never think that anything is unattainable. With a strong work ethic, you can make anything possible.”