The Twitter bio of UNC’s Erin Matson, the best player on the best field hockey team in the country, tells you that the sophomore is a two-time national champion. It could include a lot more — about how she won National Player of the Year in 2019, or how the Tar Heels haven’t lost a game since she stepped on campus.
Instead, it ends with a quote from the late Kobe Bryant:
“The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.”
It’s in that spirit that Matson has, for the last few weeks, tweeted out training videos from her home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, covering field hockey basics like receiving, pulls and eliminations. While they were ostensibly intended for the U10 Carolina All Stars, a team that Matson helps coach in the winter and spring, the clips have since taken on a life of their own.
“Since we’ve been stuck at home, I’ve gotten a lot of little girls asking for really simple drills that they can do in their basement, garage, outside, wherever,” Matson said in a March 28 video with more than 15,000 views. “And since I miss coaching the little ones down at UNC, I figured this is the best we can do for the time being.”
Matson said that her quarantine has been “like I reverted back to two years ago," working out in her home gym just like she did before college. Those workouts (and the training videos) take place in what her family calls the “blue room,” an unfinished storage closet converted into an ideal field hockey workout space.
“The paint’s blue, so the floor’s blue,” Matson said, adding, “It’s perfect. It’s my favorite room in the house.”
Once a video is shot by her younger brother Sean, Erin throws it in Adobe Premiere Pro and — using skills learned from her MEJO 121 class, “Introduction to Digital Storytelling” — adds background music and her own narration.
