An Interview with Matt Golden

Matt An Interview with l Goden

In His First Year As Head Football Coach | by Erin E. Berg

Matt Golden, who joined RL this year as Assistant Director of Athletics and head coach of Varsity Football, graduated from Bates College in 2020, where he was a sociology major and educational studies minor. There Mr. Golden was a quarterback, running back, and captain of the varsity football team. He was named to the NESCAC AllAcademic Team and received the Harward Center Award for community volunteerism and leadership. He attended Bishop Stang High School in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and was elected by his classmates as their class president three years running. He played three varsity sports: football, basketball, and track and field. He captained the football team, which was the conference champion, as well as the basketball team which won the state championship. At RL, in addition to his roles in the Athletics Department, he is also teaching in the Health and Wellness program.

When did you realize that you wanted to coach football? I think it started even before I became a football player myself. I grew up in a family where my dad was a head high school football coach and where my grandfather was a head college football coach, so every week each fall my siblings, my mom, and I would make pizza on Friday night and then go watch my dad's games.

I remember really looking up to those guys who were high school players at New Bedford High and wanting to be like them. And I knew I wanted to be like my dad, just like every young kid wants to be. Then I grew a little bit older, and by the time I went to middle school and high school I was able to see what the role of coach can mean for a young person, especially in the context of football, where there are so many moving parts. It's such an emotional game, and there are so many ups and downs, and I was able to see ways in which my dad was there for some of his players.

So, I transitioned from this idea of “I want to coach because I want to be like dad,” to “I want to coach because I want to help kids and I know this is a way I can do it.” I knew the positive impact that some of my coaches had made on me, and I realized that being able to coach football meant being around football and having fun every day, but also making a real difference in people's lives.

Do you have a coaching philosophy, or an overarching approach, that you enlist? First and foremost, I think it’s important to understand that—especially at the high school level—football is a sport, and sports are supposed to be fun. But second, they’re also great tools for learning about life: You learn how to succeed; you learn how to fail; you learn how to deal with adversity when the ref makes a call that you don't agree with. Do you let that hold you up, or can you line up and play the next play?

I approach coaching football as a teaching tool. I’ve always looked at athletics and the arts as co-curricular rather than an extracurricular, because it’s part of the mission of Roxbury Latin to help these boys grow into good people, and I think that sports and the arts are a massive part of that, and a massive part of learning about yourself in different ways.

So, use football as a tool to teach these boys how to become great young men, and how to deal with challenges, and how to deal with success. That’s number one. Maintaining respect for our opponents and the officials and for each other at all times is also critical. I think sports and the arts can teach you self-confidence, as well. Football is definitely a challenging sport, but when you work at it you can see that hard work makes a difference, and you can get better, and that’s a really important lesson.

When something clicks for a player, and I can see that light go on in his head—when he realizes, “Oh, this makes sense now”—that’s an awesome moment. He’s learning, “I can do this.” Seeing someone make his first tackle and seeing someone throw his first touchdown, those are awesome experiences, because those things don’t happen accidentally. They had to work for it.

What are the benefits to being a coach who is also a full-time member of the faculty? The value of that is something I prioritize as a team value, as well. Football is something that we all do. It’s something that I quite literally do for my job, but it’s part of a larger context here at RL and at any school. There’s a lot more going on than just football, and football helps support that.

In the same way that we hope our classmates and co-workers will come out and cheer us on, it’s just as important that we are aware of everything else that’s going on in the school, because we’re not the only show in town. There are lots of other things going on, and I think the fact that I have other roles in the school helps model that for the players. If my expectation is that our players show up and support their classmates in other contexts, and that they participate in the school in other contexts, I have to model that, too.

The fact that I have the opportunity to teach and advise and be a member of the community, allows me, first, to see the studentathletes throughout the day and maintain contact with them, but, second, to model for the students that there is a lot more to life than football. I think football is fantastic. It’s my favorite thing in the world to do, but that’s because it helps prepare you for life and there’s a bigger picture that we’re working toward.

What have you enjoyed most about coaching RL boys this season? Roxbury Latin boys are some of the most polite, friendly people I have ever met. They’re funny; they’re smart; they’re kind; and they make showing up to practice every day really easy. They teach me new lessons every day. I love getting to know each kid, and his personality, individually. Being only a couple of months, I’m still getting to know each kid and his quirks and his tendencies and his sense of humor, but I’m starting to pick up on all of that, and those differences bring value to practice. It’s a place where everyone can feel like he’s part of something. I’m looking forward to continuing to get to know these boys personally; I enjoy just being around these young people and seeing their energy and enthusiasm for what they’re doing.

What are your hopes for next year’s football season? I’m not looking to poach players from any other sport, but I'm hoping that next year some new kids will come out for football because they hear what a great experience it is. We want to support all the other teams—the soccer team and Coach McDonald are awesome. The cross country team and Coach Dunn and Coach Heaton have it going on in the ISL right now, and we’re going to cheer them on. But if you’re not a fall sport athlete right now, and you think you might have some free time, my hope is that you hear enough good things from our players about how fun football is at RL that you want to come out and give it a shot.

Do you have a pre-game ritual either personally or for the team? Personally, I run sprints across the field before every game, before the kids show up. Then I go in and shower and drink my iced coffee and come out ready to go.

As a team, something that I picked up in college was just taking a pause right before we head out to the field, and expressing gratitude for everything that we’re lucky enough to have been given, and gratitude for the opportunity to be together that day

and to play that game. And then we just take a couple of deep breaths as a team, and kind of hear each other breathing, and just have a moment of appreciation for how lucky we are to be there in that moment, to be around each other.

What else inspires you, in this work? To be honest with you, I probably couldn’t do anything today that I learned in Pre-Calc as a senior in high school. But I remember how every teacher I ever had made me feel, and I remember how every coach I ever had made me feel, and I tell myself on a daily basis that I want to be somebody who makes these kids feel good. I want to make them feel challenged. I want to make them feel safe. I want to make them feel appreciated. I want this to be a good experience for them, and that’s what drives me every day.

Is there anything else we should know about you? Well, I’m kind of a nerd.

How are you a nerd? Tell me about your nerdiness. I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. I’m currently listening to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them on audiobook. I’m a big Marvel MCU fan. We talked a little bit in Health and Wellness this year about feeling stress versus feeling overwhelmed, and in that conversation about healthy stress we talked about something called “flow state.” I never quite had a word for it before now, but there are two places in the world where I’m in flow state: One, when I'm out on the field or on the basketball court. I’m just going out and competing without any thought. The second is when I’m building with LEGOs. I lose track of time, and I could go for hours and hours. It just occupies my brain and entertains me. I love Harry Potter; I love Marvel; and I love building with LEGOs. //