MOSCOW, Idaho – Shea Mattson of track and field/cross country and Allison Kirby from women’s basketball have been named this week’s Vandals of the Week.
Mattson recently completed his first season with the Vandals while majoring in broadcast and digital media with a minor in Spanish. In his first season with Idaho he finished third among Vandals at the 2020 Big Sky Cross Country Championships.
“I don’t necessarily know, 100 percent, what I want to go into yet, all I know is that I signed up for the Digital Media major because broadcasting is always something that’s been fun to me and right now I’m just following a passion,” Mattson said. “I have a lot of high hopes for sports broadcasting.”
Kirby just concluded her career with the Vandals and earned her degree in exercise, science and health education. She averaged 5.9 points per game last season and has been a consistent member of the Big Sky All-Academic Teams since joining the Vandals.
“With my degree in Exercise Science and Health Education, it allows me to teach P.E. and Health education,” Kirby said. “I hope to be a P.E. Teacher and Health Teacher and head coach in the future. I’m also getting my personal training certification right now so I can do that on the side or in the summer as well.”
As always, both student-athletes were thankful for the opportunity to speak on being a student as well as an athlete.
“It really means a lot,” said Mattson. “It’s kind of easy to recognize people in sports because they get a lot of attention. Being recognized for academics is a really big deal for me.”
“It means a lot, to be honest,” said Kirby. “Sometimes with basketball all you get for recognition is for sport, but it’s really nice to be recognized for academics and stuff. There are a lot of athletes who put a lot of extra time in the classroom, I know I had some teammates that had some really hard majors. I just think it’s so important for them to get recognized for it.”
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