Erin Matson

Erin Matson (born March 17, 2000) is an American field hockey coach and former player who is the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels field hockey team. She has led the Tar Heels to win five NCAA championships, four as a player (2018–2020, 2022) and one as a coach.

Matson is one of only two players to be selected to the United States national team at age 16; the first was Katie Bam, selected in 2005.

Early life Matson grew up in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and started playing field hockey in 2006. Her mother, Jill, played field hockey and softball at Yale, and her father, Brian, played baseball at Delaware. Matson played as a midfielder and graduated from Unionville High School in 2018. In high school, she committed to play collegiate field hockey at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, under head coach Karen Shelton.

College career In the fall of 2018, Matson made her debut in Chapel Hill, and over the course of her time there, became one of the most decorated athletes in North Carolina Tar Heels history, with career achievements rivaling those of Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, and Tyler Hansbrough. While at North Carolina, she won the Honda Sports Award three times, being recognized as the nation's top collegiate field hockey player in 2019, 2020, and 2022. She won four NCAA Championships as a player (2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022), and five ACC titles in her five seasons in Chapel Hill. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA granted all student-athletes an extra year of eligibility, which Matson used to return to Carolina for a fifth playing season in 2022. Matson was recognized as the ACC Player of the Year and ACC Offensive Player of the Year every season she played at Carolina.

Coaching career Following Karen Shelton's retirement in December 2022, and just a month after her own graduation from UNC, Matson was named the Tar Heels' head coach on January 31, 2023. In a move that paralleled Shelton's own hiring 42 years prior (Shelton was 23 when she became head coach), Matson became the Tar Heels' head coach at the age of 22. Matson inherited a defending national championship team made up of many of her former teammates.

Career highlights Matson was part of the United States team at the 2016–17 Hockey World League Semifinals in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the final, Matson scored the winning goal in a penalty shootout against Germany. Matson has represented the US in four other international competitions in her career, the first being the 2014 Youth Indoor Pan American Games.