Field hockey star Erin Matson said Thursday that the sport’s governing body in the United States denied her an opportunity to try out for this year’s Olympic team. Matson, who is coming off a national championship season in her first year as the field hockey coach at North Carolina following the end of her highly decorated playing career with the Tar Heels, called for “change” at USA Field Hockey.
“We should be focused on naming the strongest possible roster in order to be successful on the world stage,” Matson, 24, said in a statement she shared on social media Thursday evening.
Matson said she made her request for a tryout in February, but USA Field Hockey “chose not to grant me that opportunity.” She added that she “met all selection criteria” as laid out in the national organization’s bylaws.
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“My request wasn’t to be an Olympian. My request was to allow me to try out,” wrote Matson, who until last year had been a member of the U.S. national team since 2017. “Although it leaves my heart heavy, I have moved forward.”
USA Field Hockey issued a statement Friday afternoon that, in part, said, “Erin was invited by USA Field Hockey to tryout in early 2023, but turned down the opportunity, which established the main pool of candidates for potential selection. Subsequently, Erin has not played in national or international competitions necessary to be evaluated on an ongoing basis since the original selection of the centralized athlete pool in early 2023. It was not possible for the selection committee to fairly evaluate the inclusion of Erin. As a result, Erin did not qualify under the mandatory terms of the selection criteria that all athletes had to follow for possible inclusion on the team.”
Matson told Olympics.com last summer that she was stepping away from the national team to give her then-new job as North Carolina’s coach “all of my attention and energy.”
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“The door [to playing for Team USA] is not closed, but it’s not open,” she added at the time.
After spending last fall on the Tar Heels’ sideline — and becoming the youngest championship-winning head coach in NCAA Division I history — Matson returned to play last month for Team USA at the 2024 Indoor Pan American Cups in Calgary. She scored two goals as the United States finished first, and her tally in a post-overtime shootout clinched the gold medal.
Matson told the Inquirer that part of her motivation in competing at that event was to give USA Field Hockey “an opportunity to see me play again.”
“She changed her mind,” UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham said Thursday to the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer. “She came back to me and asked what I thought. I said, ‘You’re only 23, 24 once. If you want to play, we’ll figure it out.’ We had a plan and figured out how she could do it. But she had to be selected, and she wasn’t selected.”
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Other UNC officials called on USA Field Hockey to grant Matson her request. Board of Trustees chair John Preyer said in a statement that the organization’s stance was “beyond comprehension.”
“Why is U.S. Field Hockey denying the greatest American player in history a chance to compete for a spot on the Olympic team?” Preyer wrote. “Erin meets all the criteria and is willing, able, and ready to be in Charlotte on Sunday with the full support of her colleagues and team at Carolina. We trust U.S. Field Hockey will reconsider their earlier statements and give Erin the opportunity to compete.”
Describing Matson’s 2023 activities as a “brief ‘sabbatical’ from international competition,” trustee Jennifer Halsey Evans said, “Erin cares deeply about her sport and her teammates and wants to do everything possible to promote field hockey and help the United States win in Paris.”
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Preyer called Matson “the most accomplished U.S. field hockey player of all time.” He noted that she won four NCAA championships as a player and then added another last year as a coach, was named first-team all-American five times and won national player of the year honors three times.
“I appreciate the support shown for me by our UNC family and the overall field hockey community,” Matson, who grew up in the greater Philadelphia area, said in her statement. “I will be cheering loudly for the women I grew up playing with and for Team USA, who continue to make us all proud.”
Responding to a statement from USA Field Hockey officials that they had invited her to meet in Charlotte and were “awaiting a response,” she said Thursday that she declined because “they did not want to discuss the Paris games.”
“I felt it unfair to take time and attention away from a group in Charlotte that would be training and focusing on 2024,” Matson said. “There is plenty of time after the Paris games to talk about my involvement in 2026 and 2028, and I look forward to having that discussion.
“I believe,” she continued, “change in USA Field Hockey is necessary.”
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