University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Missi Matthews: A Life and Career Built on a Love of Pitt and Sports
12/26/2023 2:40:00 PM | Football, General
With the help of her alma mater, Missi Matthews has turned an early love of sports into a wildly successful career with one of the NFL's most beloved franchises.
The Plum Boro, Pennsylvania, native serves in a variety of multimedia roles for the Pittsburgh Steelers, primarily as a television and radio host and reporter.
And her roots are deeply tied to Pitt roots that began to grow nearly five decades ago.
Matthews' parents met at Pitt, where her father, Jeff, was an offensive lineman on the team that won a National Championship in 1976 under coach Johnny Majors.
A native of New Jersey, Jeff met Matthews' mother, Cindy, while in school, and Matthews and her generation of the family have continued their love of the Panthers.
Matthews' brother, Zack, was on the men's soccer team at Pitt. Her cousin, Kirk Domanick, played baseball for the Panthers. Another cousin, Katelyn Allison (Fleishman), was a member of the Pitt track and field and cross-country teams and is now an associate professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Department of Sports Medicine and Nutrition, and serves as the interim director for the MS in Sports Science Program.
And it doesn't stop there.
"When I tell you all of my aunts, uncles and cousins—pretty much everybody— went to Pitt, I mean everybody," Matthews says with a laugh. "Or, even if they didn't, we all still went to Pitt games. They were almost like family functions."
As a child, Matthews attended games at Pitt Stadium, including the last game ever played there, and at the Fitzgerald Field House, and her interest in attending the University grew. Her father pushed her to apply to a variety of schools, however—a due diligence move, she says, but one that still resulted in Matthews' coming to Oakland as a student in 2003.
She majored in media and professional communications and was a member of Pitt's dance team. She also became heavily involved in a variety of other sports behind the scenes.
"I knew I kind of wanted to do something in the communication field," she says. "I wasn't very specific when I first went to Pitt. Obviously, I love sports, [but] wasn't sure how to kind of intertwine them.
"I interned in Pitt's athletics department under E.J. [Borghetti] and Celeste [Welsh]. But I didn't really love the public relations aspect. And that's how I kind of jumped around and started working for [Associate Athletic Director for Broadcast and Video Production] Paul Barto."
At that time, Pitt was in the early stages of what is now its branch of the ACC Network and Pitt Studios, a multimedia production suite in the main lobby of the Pete.
"It was called PantherVision at the time. We were boots on the ground, starting with videos of us interviewing players."
One of Matthews' first interviews that she recalls was with former Pitt AllAmerican linebacker H.B. Blades. And she was hooked.
"It was old school, just learning how to use a camera, how to edit, and it really just kind of opened my eyes to this part of sports that I didn't really think of," she says. "But it was definitely from PantherVision where something clicked and I thought, 'Oh, okay, this would be a cool job.'"
It didn't hurt that, in her first year at Pitt, Larry Fitzgerald took a run at the Heisman Trophy, compiling one of the most impressive seasons for a wide receiver in college football history.
"I saw some pretty amazing games," Matthews adds.
That spark from PantherVision ignited a career for Matthews in the industry, even as a student. She interned at Fox SportsNet Pittsburgh (now AT&T SportsNet) and picked up work as an associate producer at WTAE-TV, working a shift from 3 a.m. until noon.
"Sometimes I'd get off a plane from a football game and go to work, which was fun," she jokes. "But it was a good experience."
The ability to get a taste of the sports journalism industry, observe other professionals at a young age as a student-athlete and get that hands-on experience at Pitt gave Matthews a path toward her future. It also showed her what she liked to do most and where to tailor her skill sets.
"I think it was definitely interviewing players, which I was very drawn to," she says. "But I was also learning how to pick up a camera, how to shoot, how to edit my own stuff, how to even do voiceovers. That was something very foreign to me.
"But Pitt is for sure where I think I got a really good crash course on what would come."
After graduating, Matthews found work at a couple of other Pennsylvania stations. She was a reporter and producer for WJAC-TV in Johnstown and WPMT FOX43 in Harrisburg before returning to Pittsburgh to work for WTAE again.
In 2012, a position opened up with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a team reporter— an in-house multimedia- and social media-based job that has become the norm throughout sports but was a bit groundbreaking at the time.
Since then, Matthews' career has flourished, and she has become a major part of the Steelers' media initiatives. She hosts a variety of filmed content and serves as a sideline reporter for the team's preseason games on television and as a radio sideline reporter for regular season and postseason games. In 2019, she was part of a group that won an Emmy Award for a roundtable segment featuring Super Bowl XLIII MVP Santonio Holmes.
Her professional accomplishments have come alongside some special personal moments. Matthews and her husband, Brad, have two sons. And the unusual nature of her job is always an interesting conversation starter with other parents.
"You meet a new parent at a sporting event, and they say, 'Oh, what do you do?'" she says. "It's a little different from when someone says, 'I work for so-and-so company.' Not many people go, 'I cover sports for a living.'"
While the uniqueness of her job has become normal for her, that's not the case for her sons.
"My kids see what I do, and they say, 'You talk to [Steelers defensive tackle] Cam Heyward, and he knows your name,'" she says. "And I say, 'Oh, yeah, he actually does.'
"You don't think twice, but then my boys say, 'Oh, my gosh, tell him we said hi.' Stuff like that—I think it makes you realize that you don't have a normal job."
Matthews' days are now filled with conducting interviews; attending practices; and producing high-quality, award-winning-caliber content consumed by millions of fans each year. And the groundwork for that began at Pitt, where Pitt Studios' video production content has become among the best in the country and has resulted in plenty of talented young people going into the sports journalism workforce.
"I mean, I'm jealous as hell, I'll tell you that much," she says of the current amenities for Pitt students. "Just to see their studio, the multiple control rooms, being able to be a student and having experience with the ACC Network—I would have killed for those opportunities.
"I thought interning for class credits at a local TV station or FSN Pittsburgh was the coolest thing ever. But, I mean, what they have now, that's major."
Matthews and her family maintain close ties to Pitt. She has done game-day work for the athletics department, and her father works as the "red hat" official on sidelines during Pitt football games, where Matthews' children love to watch their grandfather and the Panthers.
She also remains close with her former dance team teammates and even lives next door to one of her closest college friends, Danielle Petrina.
Matthews' friends, family and professional life are all connected, in a sense, by a love for Pitt that has very much been woven throughout the tapestry of her life. It's been there since the start. And now, with her growing family alongside, that love for sports and for the Panthers will be carried on.
"Sports have bonded us throughout my entire life, especially with Pitt," she says. "It's awesome."
