Sleep eludes Erin Matson. It’s been three weeks since the University of North Carolina’s most decorated field hockey player-turned-head coach led her players to an NCAA championship victory in her first season; The 23-year-old is believed to be the youngest college coach to win a national championship. Still, even as Matson’s other coaching duties attract his attention, the interview requests keep coming. But Matson isn’t complaining.
“Field hockey doesn’t get that kind of coverage at all,” says Matson, who led the UNC team to four NCAA championships over five seasons as a student-athlete. U.S. field hockey is having a moment, and there’s no way Matson can hold it back. Just as he weaves his way through his opponents on the field, Matson only knows one direction, forward.
“She is the best thing to happen to field hockey since our championship in 1984. [Olympic] Bronze medal,” said former UNC coach Karen Shelton, who turned the reins over to Matson at the end of her 42-year career at the Chapel Hill school. Shelton understands better than anyone the pressures and pitfalls of such a grueling endeavor at such a tender age; Shelton was only 24 when he took over at UNC, eventually leading it to the premier collegiate program in the country and home to 11 NCAA championships.
Matson, who hails from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, was introduced to the sport when his mother, a former Yale goalkeeper, took her unusually coordinated six-year-old to a local clinic. Erin gripped the bat like she had never let it go before, executing the movements quickly and confidently. Although she was also successful in softball and basketball, she was naturally talented. Field hockey eventually won out, the sharp sound of wood meeting hard plastic too tempting to give up.
By luck, fate or a combination of both, the Matsons lived an hour away from the WC Eagles facility, the country’s best youth club. At the age of nine, Erin joined the team in the blink of an eye, joining the 14- and 15-year-olds.
Coach Shelton watched nine-year-old Matson punch above his weight for the first time at the WC Eagles facility. By age 13, Matson was introduced to the international game, making her debut in the junior Pan-American games. He became a member of the US national team at the age of 17.
Matson and his family took an unofficial visit to UNC when he was 15. Matson had always made it clear he wanted to play there under Shelton, but the trio wisely tried to keep their options open by making appointments with other schools. But the determination would always be UNC, reinforced by Matson’s solitary run across campus to clear his thoughts.
Matson has flourished with Shelton and the Tar Heels as a top-scoring midfielder who, like Lionel Messi, can anticipate others’ reactions to create quick and fluid routes to goal. By the end of her tenure, the three-time team captain would win five ACC championships, receive the Honda Sports Award in field hockey three times, and set all-time scoring records in both ACC history and NCAA tournament games. . (He also competed on the international stage, winning his first international trophy for the United States shortly after his 17th birthday and helping the Americans reach the podium at the Pan-Am Games in Peru four years ago.)
After graduation, Matson could play professionally abroad. His talent could make this a lucrative endeavor.
“I didn’t want to leave Carolina,” Matson says. “And I knew I loved coaching. I knew I had talent for this. I knew I could help the sport, which gave me so many opportunities. “I knew I was helping the sport as a player, and I knew I could still help more.”
Through a combination of circumstances, Matson mapped the path to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Shelton would coach one more season, a fifth for Matson and others who were granted extra eligibility in response to the Covid pandemic. Can Matson land the coveted job during this time?
The man who had to be persuaded was Bubba Cunningham, the university’s athletic director for the past decade. Matson had interacted with Cunningham at games and on speaking panels, but had virtually no coaching resume to give him other than teaching at children’s camps and clinics.
“Dare to be great,” Shelton advised Matson and his teammates throughout his UNC career. With this mantra echoing in her head, Erin walked into Cunningham’s office and asked for the job.
“I wasn’t a stranger coming into his office and asking for this, but it definitely caught him off guard,” Matson said. As a starter, Matson was about to lead the team into his senior season. Can he focus on interviewing for the position, let alone have the time?
Understanding that he would be much more observed and scrutinized at every stage of his senior season, Matson entered the interview pool alongside other coaches with decades of experience.
“[I hoped Cunningham would say,] ‘Okay, he came to me in August, but he’s leading his team in a big way and he doesn’t let it affect the dressing room atmosphere,’ Matson said. “’Okay, he wanted the job, but he’s still handling the field stuff.’ The important thing was just to stay true to my word and then he’d know I wasn’t that crazy after all.”
The Tar Heels finished the season undefeated in Connecticut in November, challenging their Northwestern rivals who had eliminated them in the first round of the NCAA tournament the year before, ending their three-year championship streak. A wild battle between baby blue and deep purple ended in double overtime when Peyton Worth hit a shot with his back to the goal to give UNC the victory.
Athletic director Cunningham had seen enough. He offered Matson the head coaching position and graciously admitted that he hadn’t even considered a 22-year-old candidate until Matson walked into his office and threw his hat in the ring.
Shelton met with his star player after his retirement in December and wasn’t surprised to hear Matson had already made his move, picking the brains of other Carolina coaches and quizzing them about their individual journeys.
“He would set up meetings with different players on the team just to let them know he was going to do this and see if they had their support, which he did,” Shelton says. “Erin was willing to do the dirty work, recovery runs and support getting off the ball, sometimes you don’t get rewarded. That’s what leadership is about, and she’s done it since day one.”
UNC announced Matson’s hiring last January. Twenty-three players returned for the 2023 season; most of them were Matson’s friends with whom he spent time away from the grass. He lived off campus with a few of them. Speculation about this switch evaporated as the season progressed and was replaced by the kind of enthusiasm that only a sports college can generate. What about winning the NCAA championship in his first year as a college coach? It’s about daring to be great and achieving it.
Matson’s mastery of time management and organization—skills he credits his parents for teaching him along the way—are still in full effect three weeks after the season ended. He takes every opportunity to talk about sports in between coaching duties that are now in the hiring phase again. Sleep will come soon. Matson can feel it.
“It’s more of me reminding myself why I’m doing this, why we all know why we’re doing this,” he says. “It’s like we love this place. We love this sport. So if it benefits the sport, the future Tar Heels and the current players, then we’re doing something right.”