Alumni Spotlights are Q&A's with former Brandeis student-athletes, across a myriad of disciplines, as they reflect on their Brandeis experience and how it has shaped their lives today. Read more spotlight features here.
Name: Matthew Goldberg '94
Sport: Swimming and Diving
Current job: Swimming and Diving Coach, Concord-Carlisle High School
BIO
A native of Waltham, Matthew Goldberg was a four-year member of the men's swimming and diving team.
In addition to teaching Biology and Environmental Science at Concord-Carlisle High School, Goldberg has been the coach of the Patriots' swimming and diving team for the last 8 years, and an assistant coach for 14 years before that. He led the CCHS girls team to their first Massachusetts State Division I Title in program history last month, after having finished second in four of the previous five seasons. In April he will be inducted into the Massachusetts Swim Coaches Hall of Fame.
What drew you to Brandeis in the first place?
Growing up in Waltham, Brandeis was always on my radar, but I had ideas of moving further from home. My high school swim team practiced part of the time at the Brandeis pool. It was then that I got to meet Coach Zotz. My coach asked if he could look at my flip turns (they were awful), and Coach Zotz gave me some things to work on, and it made a big difference. As I got to know the school more it seemed like it would be a good fit for me, but I still wasn't sure that I could make it work financially. When Brandeis offered me the Waltham Scholarship, I was all in.
Describe your overall experience as a student-athlete. What does it mean to you now/what did it mean to you while you were an undergraduate?
Being a member of Brandeis Swimming and Diving was the biggest part of my social life for those 4 years. In addition to practicing together for hours a day, we ate meals together, hung out on weekends, my roommates were swimmers and divers, many of us took classes together (there seemed to be a lot of biology majors on the team). If I went to Usdan at lunchtime, I was guaranteed to find a table of teammates to sit with. It was my family while I was at school.
But from that experience, I was able to take away so many important lessons. How to set goals, and how to work towards them. How to handle setbacks, but move forward with positivity. The importance of having people that you will always support and that you know will always support you.
Do you have any advice for current or future Brandeis Student-Athletes?
Cheer so loudly for your teammates that you lose your voice. I mean that literally and metaphorically. You'll never regret the efforts you put into supporting those you care about.
Do you keep in touch with any of your former Brandeis teammates? How?
My closest friends on the team, John Farnsworth, Ted Froum, and Eric Berkson, were also my roommates. We were all at each others' weddings, which coincidentally were all on Memorial Day Weekend, so we all have anniversaries within a few days of each other. While we are a bit scattered now, I still think of them often.
Eric married a teammate, Stephanie (Shapiro) Berkson, and this fall I got to sit with them as we watched their kids at their soccer game at Concord Carlisle High, where I teach and coach.
I also get to reconnect with Paul Phillips, as he is also a swim coach at Clark University. It was a great feeling when two of my high school swimmers went on to swim for Paul at Clark.
Looking back on your career at Brandeis, do you have any one or two moments that you look back on and cherish?
There are so many… but just this week I was telling colleagues about our training trip to Cumana, Venezuela. We were told not to drink the tap water there, but that was hard to stick to when we were swimming 6 hours a day in the hot sun. Many of us got really sick. But despite that, the time we spent together training, experiencing a different culture, and spending time on the beach, were some of the best memories of college.
What prompted you to get into coaching?
I started on that path in high school when my coach at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club asked me to be an assistant coach during my senior year. After college, I got to coach alongside Coach Zotz as an assistant coach as well. But I found that collegiate coaching while working as a full-time teacher was too hard to manage. So I turned to coaching high school, and have been with it ever since.
What personal or professional accomplishments are you most proud of since you graduated?
I have to admit, winning the State Championships this year was pretty cool. But beyond the wins and losses, I'm proud of our team, and all the kids on it. I've modeled my own coaching style based on what I learned from Coach Zotz and my teammates at Brandeis, as well as my mentor, Jerry Moss, at Concord Carlisle. The culture of our team is really great. We don't make cuts, and we are a very large and inclusive team. We had 90 boys and girls on the team this year.
One of the traditions that I brought from my time at Brandeis are TLs (Tell Last? Team Love?). Once a week through the season we hold a team meeting, and every team meeting ends with TLs, where teammates have the opportunity to give an affirmation to another member of the team. With this little tradition, we have been able to demonstrate the importance of everyone's contributions, not just the top athletes who go on to compete at the state champs. Our team motto is "Be better today than we were yesterday." We focus not just on individual improvement, but on what we can do to lift up our teammates. When I watch what these kids do in and out of the pool, how they treat each other, and how they treat their competition, with love and respect… that's what I'm most proud of.
