PARIS — The week was almost over, the Olympics nearly wrapped, when Erin Matson walked into the lobby of a botanical-themed boutique hotel. A sort of gilded garden pulled from a Parisian dream. This place is how the other side lives, and the name fit. La Fantaisie.

Nike booked a block of rooms during the Olympic Games. Its guests were part of an annual Athlete Think Tank, a consortium to survey influential women in sports. The list included Dawn Staley, Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird and so on. They sat for group discussions, Master Class presentations from Serena Williams and Stacey Abrams, and for product sessions, giving feedback on Nike goods coming out soon and others still years from release.

The youngest member of the group was USC basketball star Juju Watkins. The second-youngest was Matson — a 24-year-old entering her second season as head field hockey coach at the University of North Carolina.

Matson arrived in the lobby wearing an oversized designer Nike sweatsuit. The chauffeur waiting outside was scheduled to leave for the airport in 45 minutes. Jess Sims, the Peloton instructor-turned-ESPN personality, walked past, asking if she and Matson were sharing a ride to Charles de Gaulle.

This is not the typical life of an American college field hockey coach. Matson is represented by Wasserman Group, the powerful sports and entertainment agency representing Katie Ledecky, Diana Taurasi, Nelly Korda and others, and this summer proved her reach. She walked the red carpet at the ESPYs. She was a featured speaker at the espnW Summit in New York City.

At a time when spiking interest in women’s sports is dictated heavily by name recognition and star power, Matson has found a place in these reserved spaces. Once the country’s top high school field hockey player and member of the U.S. national team at age 17, she played five seasons (2018-22) at North Carolina and won all imaginable honors. She became the NCAA’s third all-time leading goal scorer, was part of four national championship teams, and was named national player of the year three times.

But this year, instead of competing in Paris, the 24-year-old face of the sport was across town hanging out with Serena Williams as the U.S. national team went 1-3-1.

The backstory is layered. Following the December 2022 retirement of legendary coach Karen Shelton, UNC named Matson, then 22, as head coach of the winningest, most well-funded college field hockey program in the country. Many celebrated the move as daring — a succession mimicking Shelton’s rise 42 years earlier. It was another era, but Shelton once went from being a three-time national player of the year at West Chester, to high school head coach in New Jersey, to taking over UNC at 23. Others weren’t so cheery about the move. Some saw Matson’s hiring as ridiculous, a borderline insult to women’s sports, and criticized the school for what they saw as a closed job search.

Matson and the Tar Heels responded by winning the school’s 11th national championship in her first season as head coach.

All of this before turning 25.

Thus, the status.

Thus, Paris.

Matson filled a journal with notes and quotes. She talked to Staley about coach-captain relationships. She listened to Abrams speak on staying true to one’s values. She felt, at times, out of place. “Why am I here?” Not because of a lack of credentials, but because of field hockey’s ultra-niche place in women’s sports. It’s an issue much older than Matson.

Over lunch with Rapinoe one day, Matson was struck by a realization — that Rapinoe, a U.S. soccer icon, became so by being transcendent on the field and outspoken off the field. She raised the profile of women’s soccer as a player, a freedom afforded on the field more than when working as the CEO on the sideline.

In Paris, that field was Yves du Manoir Stadium. The U.S. national team, a group featuring two of Matson’s current players, one former player and five players she’ll coach against this fall, were outscored by eight goals and eliminated in pool play. They failed to medal, again, extending a streak dating to 1984.

The instinct, of course, is to make it make sense, but nothing is quite so simple here, and it’s only the sport that’s suffering.

Here’s the shortest possible version of the long, convoluted tale of Matson and USA Field Hockey. When hired at North Carolina, Matson knew taking a full-time job with a six-figure salary meant stepping away from the U.S. national team. In her version of events, she wanted a few years to settle into the job, then hoped to continue her playing career, splitting time between coaching and playing. She told UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham of her plans to pursue the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. He was all for it.

Then two things happened. The Tar Heels won the national title in Matson’s first season. And the U.S. national team, one projected as a long shot to make the Paris Olympics, successfully qualified for the Games.

Reversing course on her original decision, Matson made a late effort to land a spot on the U.S. team, requesting a tryout and playing in the indoor Pan-Am Games to notch some international playing reps. While much of the already established U.S. national team had sacrificed time and energy, living and training at a facility in Charlotte, N.C., the official roster was not yet finalized. Multiple collegians who played their 2023 seasons would be invited to try out. Matson would not. USA Field Hockey issued a statement that Matson “did not qualify under the mandatory terms of the selection criteria.” Simon Hoskins, the executive director of USA Field Hockey, told The Athletic it was his decision to deny the tryout request, saying, “It’s an organizational policy, so it comes to me.”

The resulting backlash ran both ways. Matson’s supporters levied accusations of jealousy in the ranks of USA Field Hockey. Matson’s detractors criticized her for wanting special treatment and walking away from the national team in the first place. Acrimony and arguments mounted. Earlier this summer, a series of conversations with members of the 1984 bronze-medal winning team drew a variety of responses — both that USA Field Hockey wasn’t capitalizing on a new star, and that roster policies exist for a reason. Meanwhile, other current college coaches declined to go on the record to discuss the topic.

Anyone operating from a perch of perspective could see a valid case either way. Matson did choose to prioritize her coaching career over her playing career. At the same time, regardless of protocols or personal feelings, was it really in the sport’s best interest for her not to try out for the Olympics?

Field hockey, played evenly among men and women in other parts of the world, has long struggled to catch on in the United States. While other women’s sports have hit periods of momentum, field hockey has never moved into the mainstream. It’s regional. It requires specific (read: expensive) turf. It doesn’t draw droves of kids as a youth sport. So while other women’s sports have enjoyed measurable growth, like increased college scholarship totals, field hockey has stagnated. A lack of success at the national level can be seen as both a root cause and a byproduct. Since ’84, the United States has finished no better than fifth in any Games since.

Hoskins cites a lack of government funding.

“It’s just not fair,” he said. “It’s a subsidized industry that we’re competing in. It’s a real struggle for the organization.”

Money is one thing, but popularity is another, and field hockey has never waded into public consciousness because the public knows so little about it. Sports need stars; in this instance, the sport’s biggest American star wasn’t part of the game’s biggest stage in Paris. Well, she was, except she was watching track and swimming meets and posting pictures for her 70,000 Instagram followers while the U.S. team scored five total goals in five games.

A day full of gymnastics and waiting the 🐐 do her thanggg

Not pictured: product sessions with Nike about the future 👀👀 pic.twitter.com/7Bksq9PYAK

— Erin Matson (@erinmatsonn) August 6, 2024

Neither the results nor the optics add up.

Though the ugliness of the 2024 process is still fresh, Matson says she fully intends to pursue a spot on the 2028 Olympic team, even if that requires upwards of two years playing for the national team — “One hundred percent,” she said — but as an organization, USA Field Hockey must examine its shortcomings at the international level.

“I think there’s got to be changes (in the system),” Matson said. “I won’t sugarcoat that. I don’t know how many times we’ve got to fail for people to say that, but like, you know, come on. So I think there’s going to be. But there’s definitely no question that I would love to do that. I know I can help.”

Considering how fraught things turned through the spring, some will wonder what’s rectifiable.

“You don’t have to like me,” Matson said. “I’m not telling you to be my friend. I don’t need any more friends. I have support and I’m grateful. But why can’t we come to an understanding? Do we want to win or have the best chance to win? I don’t mean just here at the Olympics. Our sport needs to win.

“I’m not someone who lives in regret, gets hung up on that, or holds grudges. I truly believe if you want to grow or progress, you can’t be hung up on that stuff.”

In the meantime, Matson will keep coaching. In what felt like a wink to her detractors, she made a notable hire this summer. Romea Riccardo, who won five NCAA titles at UNC and graduated in December, was named as a full-time assistant coach on staff. Matson says Riccardo was to her what she was to Shelton. Once upon a time, the two were freshmen together.

“The argument from the schools that recruit against us is, ‘They’re a young staff; they have no idea what they’re doing,’” Matson said. “And you know, I always joke — don’t people know that we like a target on our back by now? If you just stay quiet and don’t tell me what you’re thinking, I’ll actually probably get less motivated. But if you keep telling me, oh, you’re too young, oh, you can’t do this and that — like, stop it, ‘cause you’re only hurting yourself.”

The 2024 North Carolina season will start next week with the Tar Heels, again, a national title favorite. Matson says she knows perceptions. “That, oh, Erin is off gallivanting in Paris. Oh, Erin is out in LA at the ESPY Awards,” she said. “But I don’t think people understand that I know how fortunate I am, and I use these opportunities and ask, how can we be better, how can the sport get bigger?”

Maybe that’s possible. Or maybe it’s fantasy.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Andrew Katsampes / ISI Photos, Jamie Schwaberow / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Stacy Lewis is back sitting at the top table of the media room, answering a belated question from someone too shy to shout over the gusts of wind during the press conference.

Her five-year-old daughter Chesnee wants to know if she can get a swimming pool — “a big one” — if her mum wins here, as she did in 2013.

“I think I might be able to sort you out, girlie,” says Lewis.

Eleven years have passed since the Texan shot birdie-birdie on the final two holes to clinch the Women’s Open by two shots. The second shot into 17 remains the best of her career, so much so that the 5-iron is the only club she has kept for her office.

But in that time, as motherhood has usurped golf in her list of priorities and made her less tunnel-visioned, the demands of the LPGA Tour have become even more all-consuming.

This year’s tour started with two Florida events and ends with another three in the Sunshine State. The intervening 10 months? A map of tangled zig-zags across the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia that would not look out of place in Chesnee’s school jotter.

This week’s Open is the fifth major in as many months, not including the Olympic Games at France’s Le Golf National earlier this month. St. Andrews closes the majors season, but with the Solheim Cup in September and another Pacific leg this fall visiting China, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Hawaii in the space of just 35 days, the schedule is rammed and not ending anytime soon.

We only ask the most important questions in this press conference!!!

Chesnee asked mom @Stacy_Lewis if she could get a swimming pool 🥰😂 pic.twitter.com/bhqgapR1Yz

— LPGA (@LPGA) August 21, 2024

Across the 33 combined LPGA Tour stops and majors this year, there are more than 215 hours of pure flying time. The overall mileage adds up to more than three trips around the world.

This is not a new problem — last year’s schedule included a record-breaking 18 occasions with more than 2,000 miles between tour stops. This season there was the travel to China and intra-continental visits to Thailand and Malaysia; criss-crossing from west coast Los Angeles to east coast New Jersey in May; June’s see-sawing from Michigan to the PGA Championship in Washington state and back again to Michigan, two six-hour flights with just four days rest in between each.

Eight-and-a-half months into the season, with winds of 40-45 mph forecast for Thursday and many players having not been able to play the Scottish Open to reacquaint themselves with links golf, can it be expected that any player is at the top of their game? “Probably not, no,” said Lewis, who is Team USA’s captain for the Solheim Cup in Virginia next month. “Those who played the Olympics, you talk to most of them and it’s just emotionally so taxing that week. So no, our schedule, especially Olympic years, is really, really tough.

“There’s been a lot of talk of schedule lately but also at the same time, I’ve been doing this for 15 or 16 years. You learn how to deal with it, and you learn how to be ready in those moments and really just do the best you can.”

Since 2009, the purse at the Women’s Open has increased from $2.2 million to $9 million, a 409 per cent increase — tripling since AIG started sponsoring the tournament in 2020.

Lewis described the improvement in infrastructure and facilities at the Women’s Open as “night and day” compared to 2013 but believes their hands are tied when it comes to finding ways to ease the gruelling schedule.

“I think that’s the ideal but a lot of it is when do sponsors want to play and when do we get the golf courses?” she said.

“We don’t have the luxury of the PGA Tour that says, ‘We’re giving you X amount of dollars and we’re playing this week.’ We don’t have the money to just throw around.

“We are kind of at the mercy of sponsors. We are at the mercy of golf courses and it’s the nature of where we are. Would we like to be better? Yeah, absolutely. I think our team behind the scenes works like crazy on it but we’re a global tour, and I want to compete against the best players every week.

“So to do that, we’ve got to go play in Thailand because we have players from Thailand. We’re going to go play in Korea because we have players from Korea. I think that’s just the nature of it. It’s more getting into your head, to me, that this is a global tour. You say you’re going to go play on the LPGA Tour, this is also what you signed up for.”

World number one Nelly Korda, having won six tournaments in seven starts between January and May, including the Chevron Championship, has earned more than $3 million this year in prize money.

That allows her the luxury of skipping the full Asia swing, a seven-week lay-off early in the year that was sandwiched between her winning streak. But even the two-time major winner had to withdraw from the JM Eagle LA Championship in April, citing exhaustion.

Nelly Korda has taken frequent weeks off this season, a luxury not all LPGA pros can afford. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

Lexi Thompson opened up the conversation around the mental and physical demands of the LPGA Tour in May when she announced she was retiring at the end of the season, aged just 29.

She spoke about how “lonely” and all-consuming life on tour has been since she qualified for her first U.S. Open at 12 but believes there are ways the load could be lessened.

“The schedule for sure,” said Thompson. “I think all the travel gets a lot. I think the flow of schedule could be better. Certain events could be back-to-back that are close to each other. We travel a lot out of the country but it is a global tour so that comes with it, and we’re very lucky for the sponsors that we have outside the country.

“There is a little less weight on my shoulders after the announcement because it has been on my mind for a few years, so it’s something that’s been inside that nobody really knew about or what was going to happen.”

Catriona Matthew claimed her only major at the Open in 2009, winning at Royal Lytham & St Annes just 11 weeks after giving birth. Now 54 years old and making her last appearance at her home tournament, Matthew does not know how she managed to tour with her two children in the following years.

To keep chasing another major in a field so deep Lewis counts 60 per cent as having the potential to win requires supreme resilience.

Lydia Ko is looking to end an eight-and-a-half-year major drought this week but the Australian comes in hot after winning gold in Paris, becoming the 35th woman to be inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame.

She remains the youngest female to ever win on the LPGA Tour after her triumph at 15 years old, but 12 years later there was an immediate dose of realism about how long she is willing to overcome the sore backs she experiences in the morning — and whether she may bring forward her planned retirement at 30.

“In ways, it can be scary because I’ve played golf since I was five,” said Ko.

“This is my life whether I like it or not and golf has given me so much for me to be thankful for on and off the golf course.

“As much as we are very grateful to be able to do what we love and compete at a high level, I think there is the other side of things that you have to consider. As someone that’s maybe closer to that point in my career than when I was a rookie, you come to realise all of these things, and you respect the player for the decision that she came up with.”

There are players still determined to join the majors club, most notably England’s Charley Hull whose attitude towards a recent shoulder injury captures the mindset needed to cope with this relentless schedule.

“My shoulder just got a little bit tight so I have acupuncture in it every other day because when it’s cold, it can play up a bit,” she said.

“I’ve got degenerate arthritis in it, as well. So when it does get cold, it gets a bit stiff. I just try to keep it warm.

“Apart from that, I’m healthy and ready to go.”

(Top photo: Luke Walker / Getty Images)

Mike Greenberg will be the new host of “Sunday NFL Countdown” as ESPN sets up its lineup for its first Super Bowl in 2027, a source briefed on the matter told The Athletic on Tuesday.

Greenberg replaces Sam Ponder who was fired last week with one-year and more than a million dollars left on her contract. While she will be paid in full, ESPN made the move to tidy up its books with the fiscal year concluding at the end of September.

However, the Ponder decision was also designed to promote Greenberg, a long-time favorite of ESPN executives. As the host of daily “Get Up” on TV and “Greeny” on radio, Greenberg is already a ubiquitous presence on the network. Greenberg had a brief run as the lead NBA host before relinquishing those duties to Malika Andrews last season. He also hosts the NFL Draft on ESPN, which is considered a prestigious assignment.

Greenberg, 57, receives the job over Laura Rutledge, an up-and-coming star at the network. Although on the rise, this marks the second time in the last year that Rutledge, the host of the daily “NFL Live,” has lost out to a longtime ESPN anchor.

Just before last season, Scott Van Pelt was named the host of Monday Night Football’s “NFL Countdown” over Rutledge. Van Pelt’s Monday program has also been revamped as Jason Kelce replaced the recently fired Robert Griffin III. Kelce joins analysts Marcus Spears and Ryan Clark on Mondays.

On Sundays, Greenberg’s main set will include Randy Moss, Tedy Bruschi, Rex Ryan and Alex Smith; as well as insider Adam Schefter.

ESPN and ABC will have the Super Bowl for the first time in 2027, and the network executives are designing its weekly sets for that big moment in the company’s history.

Required reading

(Photo: Joe Murphy / NBAE via Getty Images)