UNC field hockey head coach Erin Matson chatted with 97.9 The Hill’s Andrew Stuckey this week. They discussed Matson’s trip to Paris to watch the Olympics and previewed an exciting 2024 season for the defending national champion Tar Heels.
Check out highlights from the conversation below, which have been lightly edited for clarity, and click here to listen to their full conversation!
Andrew Stuckey: Before we get into the whole upcoming field hockey season and the wild year that you’ve just had since the last time you were on our air, I understand you’re about to go to Paris.
Erin Matson: Yes, I leave Thursday with Nike, which is very exciting and a very impressive group of women, so it’s gonna be a lot of fun.
Andrew Stuckey: Have you done this sort of thing before?
Erin Matson: No, first time. It’s part of the Nike Athlete think tank, and it’s gonna be lots of great conversations. I’m looking at some products, going and cheering on Team USA, learning from a bunch of really cool women. I’ve been very grateful for some of the experiences this summer, but I’m definitely looking forward to this one.
Andrew Stuckey: Have you been to Paris before?
Erin Matson: No. Also first time for that, so I need to get some soufflé, some macarons. Just enjoy the city while I’m over there.
Andrew Stuckey: Is there anything in the non-field hockey category that you’re excited to see, sports-wise?
Erin Matson: Oh my gosh, everything. We’re gonna go to the track and field women’s 100-meter final, gymnastics men’s and women’s final, beach volleyball next to the Eiffel Tower. So yeah, I am just extremely excited to wear the red, white and blue and cheer on some incredible athletes that I’ve been watching through a screen over the years.
Andrew Stuckey: This previous [UNC field hockey] season, that was your first season [as head coach]. That was also a national championship season. So what was the big takeaway for you now that you’ve had a little bit of distance between you and that first year?
Erin Matson: It’s allowed me to finally sit and think about how incredible it was. And it’s hard to describe it in a phrase, in a sentence. ‘Let’s talk about last season.’ Well, I could talk to you for three days about last season. It’s just been really special to look back and think about the team and the growth and the way everything came together, the senior leadership. And it honestly just really excites me about this upcoming season. It’s been nice to be able to just sit and look back with no field hockey attached right now.
Andrew Stuckey: Do you feel like a different person, now that you’re Coach Matson, than you did after going through the program for so many years?
Erin Matson: Maybe a little bit. I’ve never really thought about that, because the title is the really only thing that’s different, and obviously some more responsibilities. The passion I have for this place and the love I have for the people and the team and our fans and the town of Chapel Hill, it’s always been there. It’s never changed. If anything, it’s only been amplified. When you’re walking around recruiting events rather than playing in them, or when I’m sitting in interviews like this speaking as the coach rather than the fifth-year senior, it’s definitely different. I guess I’m just lucky to be doing what I’m meant to be doing and what I love with the people that I love. So in a sense, no, it doesn’t really feel too far off.
Andrew Stuckey: As familiar as it may be, I think anyone who’s started a new job can relate to when you get to that one-year point and you start to get do to do things again instead of just feeling them out for the first time. That feels like an important moment. I wonder what the last couple of months have been like as you lead up to the season with a year of experience under your belt?
Erin Matson: It’s been very exciting, but also, yeah, kind of weird in that sense. Like, ‘Oh, we’re signing hotel contracts again and preparing rooming lists again,’ and, ‘Oh yeah, we’re gonna start practice planning again.’ It is kind of deja vu, but also very fun in the sense of we get to do it for this year’s team, which is different. Every year’s team is different, you know? So it’s been a very interesting time because like you said, it’s not my first time doing it anymore. However, it’s hopefully far from my last. And even though, yes, we’ve been through it for a year, I constantly am just reminding myself that it’s only been a year, and there’s still lots to learn and go through, and this season’s gonna bring new challenges and new excitements and everything. So yeah, the last few months have been fun in a different way than doing it all the first time, but [I’m] still enjoying it, obviously still learning every single day. We’ll hopefully take care of business this fall. And then I’m sure next year talking about the upcoming season, I’m gonna feel a similar but different way yet again.
Andrew Stuckey: I wonder if you could talk about this year’s team a little bit. What are you excited about? What do you feel like is gonna be the focus early on?
Erin Matson: It’s gonna be another crazy season, I can already tell, in the best way possible. We lost three core individuals. But our entire spring was so promising with people stepping into leadership positions or stepping up on the field and just growth and everything. So while those positions were important positions on the field, the team stepped up. And is anybody surprised? No. It’s what we do. So it’s gonna be very exciting to see a just as dominant, just as team-oriented Carolina Field Hockey program. Just a little bit different than last season. And once the first day of preseason starts, the book on last season is officially closed, and I won’t answer any more questions about it, because it’s going to be about this upcoming year.
We have some solid freshmen coming in. We have some players who are in their final season. This is the last wave of the COVID year kids. So there’s also a lot of people who want to leave a lasting mark on the program. And of course everyone’s always like, ‘Don’t you guys get sick of it? Don’t you get sick of winning?’ And no, haven’t you learned that by now? It only motivates us. I have confidence that the entire group and everyone supporting us is only purely excited, because of what happened, to try to do it again and make Carolina proud.
Andrew Stuckey: Is it too early to get a sense of what type of team this will be on the field? Or is it gonna be similar to last year’s team?
Erin Matson: I think it’ll be pretty similar. I think with Carolina Field Hockey, you don’t need to fix what ain’t broke, right? It’s what we do. How we play, it works. It’s more about us just continuously pushing that standard. and we always refer back to it. Mack Brown, when he spoke with the team last year, he was like, ‘We’re not playing anybody else. We’re playing our standard.’ And that resonated with our entire group because as long as we just continue to be ourselves, we’re in a good position. So it’s all about, ‘How can we do things quicker, better? How can we remain as tight-knit and as close as we were on the first day of preseason as we are heading into the last week of the season?’ So for us, I think you’re gonna see a pretty similar Carolina Field Hockey team. Playing an exciting game, team defense, lots of scoring, lots of attack, and just a fun game to watch. We’re not gonna try to do anything different. It’s more about how can we do it a little bit better each and every day?
Andrew Stuckey: We recently learned the schedule. I’m sure you’ve had a sense of what it was gonna be for quite a while. How do you feel about that schedule, and is there anything on there that’s a particular highlight for you?
Erin Matson: The best highlight is the opening weekend of the season at this point. It’s been like this for years, but it’s always a top 10 – if not top 5 – matchup. High stakes, ACC-Big 10 rivalry, we’re really looking forward to that. And you’ve heard me and us say it before, the most important game is the next one. So we’re very much focused on having a great preseason, but then making sure we’re as prepared as possible for game one. The schedule is travel-heavy. We will be heading all over. We are going out west with the addition of Stanford and Cal for field hockey. So we’ll do another Cali trip, which I know the team’s very excited about. But that also means for the home games we have here in Chapel Hill, I will ask all of our fans and the student body and everybody to pack the house. Not like it’s anything new because people love doing that and we love the atmosphere, but when we are home, we want to make it the place to be. I know the town can do that. So we’ll continue to see Carolina Blue on the road and continue to make everybody proud no matter where we are. But we’re also very excited to play our first opening matchup on KSS [Karen Shelton Stadium] and have the whole town with us. It’ll be a lot of fun.
Andrew Stuckey: You mentioned that California trip in early October. Logistically, does that feel any different than another long road trip that you might have taken in another season, with it being ACC play?
Erin Matson: Not too much. It’s obviously west coast, so it’s the furthest we’ll go. We went out to California two years ago and it was before the addition of Stanford and Cal and SMU to the ACC. We went out a day earlier. We did the [Golden Gate] Bridge, we did lots of sightseeing. It was a whole ordeal. This year it is more of a business trip. It’s, ‘Let’s get out there, let’s take care of business and let’s get back and try to miss the least school possible and try to not get too messed up with the time zone change.’ We’ll probably do a true Cali explorative and business trip like we did a couple years ago maybe once every four years, because it is special to go all the way out there. But this year is definitely just another game on the road, and we’ll treat it like such.
Andrew Stuckey: I’ve got one more question. I know that the correct answer to this, as you’ve already said, is the opening weekend and that first game of the season. But for you personally, just thinking about the scope of a year of coaching, what part of that is your favorite? What are you looking forward to doing the second time the most?
Erin Matson: The first thing that comes to mind is practices. I really, really, really enjoy practices and being out there with the team and the staff and having two hours where your phone’s not blowing up with emails and you’re not worried about something else going on in the world. And your total focus is just, ‘Let’s have the next two hours be special and focused around development.’ I definitely miss that over the summer. So I’m really excited to sit down, plan those practices with the staff, finish all those final touches, and then on the first day of preseason, get back to it. And then going off of that as well, just being back with everybody. Throughout the summer, we can’t do any work with them, but it’s very special to see girls out there on the field and back in town enjoying it because they want to be here. So I’m really looking forward to having the whole crew back together.
Andrew Stuckey: Is there a hallmark of an Erin Matson practice? Is there some certain thing that makes your practices special?
Erin Matson: You just gave me a great opportunity to shout out our student managers. We have a good group of managers here who are just student body members who want to be involved with an excellent program. We have about five or six of them per year. And it sounds so silly, but they help us so much and never get any credit because they help pick up balls, they help put cones down, they help turn the water on, they make sure the practice is running smoothly so that we can focus solely on coaching. That makes us really special, because it’s very unique for a field hockey program to have so many people who want to be involved and help. And we obviously treat them very well, and they know they are appreciated and valued and they’re part of the team. We have a lot of fun with them. They really, really, really allow us to handle our business and do our job. I think it sets us apart a little bit.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
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