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Erin Matson is the youngest head coach to win an NCAA championship in any sport, which has everything to do with this being her first season at the helm of UNC’s field hockey program.
Who else would name a fledgling to such a hallowed position?
The four-time All-American player at Carolina is 23, so it begs the question, “Will she get a text from Michael Jordan,” who wore that number on his way to becoming arguably the greatest basketball player of all time?
She has already received a hardy congratulations from Bubba Cunningham who hurried back from Clemson to be at sold-out, standing-room-only Karen Shelton Stadium. He may be the only athletic director with the stones to hire last year’s captain to take over an iconic program that had already won 10 national titles behind Hall of Famer Shelton.
The week that her team was hosting the NCAA tournament on her own campus, Matson appeared on CBS and NBC before getting just the right amount of camera-time from ESPN during the Final Four. The sudden-victory shootout win over Big Ten field hockey majordomo Northwestern seemed like destiny, and Matson will have to spend some of her off-season trying to figure out what she will do for an encore.
Remaining calm as she paced in front of the Carolina bench, Matson seemed to comprehend the moment if not quite embracing it while letting her players enjoy the championship celebration. Can she unwittingly be a younger version of Dean Smith and Anson Dorrance, who are famous for saying, “I coach every player for the program and not just one game.”
Matson employed such a move by not always starting freshman star Charly Bruder, who leads the team in goals scored and sets up inside the circle to draw a lot of attention from the opponent. That may give the veterans on the team a sense of security, and it was sophomore Ryleigh Heck who hit the net twice in the shoot-out, including the NCAA winner.
Matson’s true mentor, of course, is Hall of Fame predecessor Shelton under whom she won five ACC championships and four NCAA championships as a player. And now she has started her own list, having won both as a first-year head coach. But that list is very long.
In her 42 years as head coach of the Tar Heels, besides hanging those 10 NCAA banners, Shelton won 25 Atlantic Coast Conference titles and had 40 winning seasons, plus a pristine stadium named after her.
Get back to work, Coach Matson. You will be 24 soon.
Featured image via UNC Field Hockey on Twitter
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A young head coach winning a National Championship? Hmmmm….She’s only 23 years old but she can coach? Hmmmm…. Maybe we should consider hiring younger folks in other sports. Which sport comes to mind? Hmmmm….Football? Nah! We’ve got a Hall Of Fame Coach who can win a bunch of games to start a season against teams with losing records. He’s a “keeper”! Plus he won’t even be 80 years old when his contract runs out.