Alumnus makes an impact through athletics administrative roles

Matt Chapman has made a career out of watching students and student-athletes develop real-world professional skills.

He enrolled at St. Cloud State University as a graduate student before quickly becoming involved with the Huskies hockey programs. Chapman started out as a graduate assistant with the men's hockey team under then-Head Coach Bob Motzko, before accepting the full-time director of hockey operations position. In that role he oversaw operations for both the men's and women's hockey programs at SCSU.

"I thought I wanted to get into coaching and knew I wanted to stay in hockey. While I was in that grad assistant role, I realized how much the coaches are gone from home and their families, and I really got into doing the administrative work with the team," Chapman said. "In that role of director of hockey operations, it was a lot of scheduling team travel, all of the administrative stuff that freed up the coaches to be able to coach and recruit."

After more than a decade as director of hockey operations for SCSU, Chapman moved into the ticket office. He completed his master's in higher education and student affairs in 2022.

"I transitioned to that as just a way to continue to grow professionally, because that was a logical next step: be a full-time administrator and not be specifically tied to one team you oversaw," he said. "I still oversaw all the ticketing for all the sports at St. Cloud State."

The different roles Chapman had at SCSU allowed him to connect with different parts of Husky nation.

"I think the impact I had when I was the director of hockey operations was more with the coaches and student-athletes. Our support staff — our athletic trainer, our equipment manager and myself — we had nothing to do with playing time. So we were kind of a safe space for if they needed to vent about something; the student-athletes could come to us. In that support role we were a listening ear, being able to impact student-athletes off the ice and be a mentor to some of those young guys. I still keep in touch with a lot of our players who have gone on; some of them are still playing professionally," he said. "I think that impact was really rewarding for me to be able to watch those kids from freshmen to when they graduated or when they departed to go play pro hockey. That was their development as people and getting to see them grow up was really cool and impactful for me. But also, hopefully I'm providing an impact on them."

He particularly enjoyed being a part of some major milestones for Huskies men's hockey.

"We were the first men's team to win an NCAA tournament game. Being part of some of those firsts: first team to get to the Frozen Four in 2012-13, first team to win a regular season title with the 2012-13 men's hockey team. When Coach Motzko was the head coach for the World Juniors with USA Hockey for two years, he asked me to be the video coach with that team," Chapman said. "Those experiences were really cool."

Chapman is now associate AD for ticketing and sales with the University of Wyoming's athletics department.

"I think I've transitioned the impact I had with the student-athletes to now student-workers," he said. "I've worked at teaching and being a good mentor and manager of our people here."

Wyoming's location and higher education landscape means Chapman is interacting with more fans as well.

"Here at Wyoming, we're the only four-year school in the state. Our state's very big — you can drive six or seven hours and still be in Wyoming — and we have folks who do that every home football game. They'll drive down and the few times we get to actually interact with them is through that," he said. "We've got impact with some donors, impact with our season ticket holders; I feel like I've got more of that contact. I've taken on more of it because — our school being the flagship university for the state — it's a pretty big deal and people are very passionate about it and they have high expectations. I think there's impact in that they have a good experience and when they interact with us in the ticket office, it rubs off on their perception of the university as a whole."

Chapman feels his roles at SCSU helped prepare him for the wide network he's now a part of.

"When I was at St. Cloud State, I interacted with a lot of other departments — even in the hockey role, because we were working with academic departments or on campus," he said. "If we were helping with move in day, I was probably the main point person. Having good relationships with folks across campus, folks in the business office, having a good working relationship with our marketing folks within athletics always helped. And the same thing goes here.

"I really enjoy what I'm doing. The one thing that's great about athletics is there's never a day that's the same."