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]…
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