University of North Carolina Athletics
All the Answers with ... Matt Crawford
November 25, 2002 | Men's Soccer
Nov. 25, 2002
By Adam Lucas, Tar Heel Monthly
Soccer is only part of the package for Carolina senior midfielder Matt Crawford. A key member of the 2001 national champions who assisted on the title-winning goal and scored the game-tying goal in the national semifinals, the Durham, NC native is also heavily involved in leadership activities both at Carolina and nationally. Crawford was selected as a first-team Academic All-American this season and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa last spring. The biology major put down the books long enough to sit down for our latest installment of All the Answers.
Tar Heel Monthly: Did you keep any memorabilia from the championship last year?
Matt Crawford: I've got lots of stuff. We've got a video of highlights from the entire year, and a lot of focus is on the playoffs. We watched that before we started the NCAA Tournament this year.
THM: What was that quadruple-overtime game against Stanford like in last year's national semifinals?
MC: That was a tough game mentally and physically. We've referred to that a lot this year in terms of how we came from down two goals in ten minutes. We feel like we are never out of the game.
THM: What was involved in the 2002 NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference that you attended this summer?
MC: There were over 300 student-athletes there, one person from each school. It was a good chance to speak about issues related to student-athletes on campus. It also made me realize how special Carolina is. The issues I was bringing up were pretty trivial compared to what's going on at other campuses. When we broke up into discussion groups, some of the issues we talked about were trust gaps between administrators and coaches and players, party behavior, and race issues.
THM: You're an Athletes Coming Together mentor at Carolina. What does that mean?
MC: You're a mentor for a group of freshmen, about one mentor for every 10 or 15 freshmen. You have one or two meetings a month, and you advise them on various stuff like classes and things to do with campus life.
THM: How do you have time to do all of these extracurriculars, play a Division I sport, and make the Dean's List on a regular basis?
MC: I enjoy these types of activities. When I'm not doing something and I have down time, I feel like I should be doing something productive. When I was in high school I was involved more just with sports and academics, but since coming to Carolina it seems like I have been presented with so many opportunities to get involved elsewhere.
THM: What's the best vacation you've ever had?
MC: I went to Jordan the summer before last. One of my roommates is from Germany but his family came from Jordan, and we went over and visited him there. We saw the Dead Sea, which was unbelievable. We went to the city of Petra, which is an ancient city where some of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed.
THM: Does going to a place like Jordan change your perspective on some of the current events in the world?
MC: Definitely. I was glad I was able to go before September 11 and witness what life was like. Watching it on TV is totally different from being there. Some of my friend's family was Palestinian, and they were asking me to talk to my President and tell him to stop supporting Israel and start looking after them. I got approached a lot. People would come up and ask me in broken English to try and create change back home.
THM: When you found out you were an Academic All-American, who was the first person you called?
MC: I didn't call anybody. It's a very nice honor, but I'm not really big on getting awards like that.
THM: If you were named the Carolina athletic director tomorrow, what would be your first act?
MC: I'd like to get people out to see a soccer game. Something I always think would be interesting since we get asked a lot if we could beat the women's team, since they are so successful, would be to have a game with the women's team and men's team. It wouldn't be for bragging rights or anything, it would just be fun to have an exhibition game. I don't think it would necessarily have to be against each other. We could intermingle the teams.
THM: Eminem - worth the hype or overrated?
MC: Overrated. I didn't see [Eminem's movie] "8 Mile." I almost said that I would never see a movie with a rapper in it, but I'm a big Steven Seagal fan and I just saw his new movie, which had Ja Rule in it.
THM: Dogs or cats?
MC: Dogs. I've had two golden retrievers, and cats don't obey and I don't feel like they love you.
THM: Be honest. Did you watch any episodes of "The Bachelor"?
MC: I didn't. I hear people talking about it, though. I watch "The Sopranos" every week and also the show that comes on after that, "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
