Gerald Mattinson enters his third season as head coach of the Cowgirls in the 2021-22 season. Before being named head coach, Mattinson spent 16 total years on the Cowgirl bench as an assistant coach, including the last 13 of those years as the associate head coach.
In the 2020-21 season, Mattinson helped guide the Cowgirls to their first-ever Mountain West Tournament title and second appearance in the NCAA Tournament in program history. UW’s MW Tournament run as a No. 7 seed, marked the first time, on either the women’s or men’s side of the tournament, that a team won four games in four days. The Cowgirls set a tournament record with 35 made 3-pointers and 68 assists while Tommi Olson set a tournament mark with 17 steals. Olson, who was named to the All-Tournament Team, was joined in the honor with teammate and tournament MVP, Quinn Weidemann, who was also named to the All-Mountain West Defensive Team during the regular season.
During the conference tournament, the Cowgirl defense was stifling, allowing just 47.8 points per game, 31-percent shooting from the floor and 18-percent from 3-point range. Wyoming outscored its opponents by 62 points (15.5 per game) during the tournament.
In his first season at the helm of the Cowgirls in 2019-20, Mattinson led UW to a 17-12 record, which is the most wins by a first-year head coach in program history. Wyoming earned the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament and advanced to the semifinals. The Cowgirls led the Mountain west in free throw percentage, making a school-record 78.3 percent of their shots from the free throw line. Additionally, the Cowgirls finished top-three in the league in eight other statistical categories.
Mattinson also guided sophomore Tereza Vitulova to all-Mountain West honors as she averaged 14.2 points and 5.6 rebounds per game while leading the league in field goal percentage, making 54.8 percent of her shots. Freshman Jaeden Vaifanua was named to the league’s all-freshman team after averaging 7.1 points and 4.1 rebounds per game in her first season at UW. Senior Taylor Rusk became the latest member of the 1,000-point club, and is just the fifth Cowgirl to have both 1,000 points and 300 assists.
Mattinson was a key figure on the bench during the most successful era of Cowgirl basketball before being elevated to head coach, as Wyoming compiled a record of 314-186 (.628) with Mattinson on the staff. He helped coach 21 players to All-Mountain West honors and helped mentor five All-Americans and two MW Players of the Year. He was also on the staff of 10 teams that recorded at least 20 wins, including each of the last three seasons as an assistant. In 2007, Mattinson helped guide the Cowgirls to the first WNIT Championship in program history, and his teams reached postseason play a total of nine times during his 16 seasons.
Off the court, 98 Cowgirls have earned academic All-Mountain West honors during the 18 years Mattinson has been at Wyoming, and 66 have been named Mountain West Scholar-Athletes. Clara Tapia also earned a pair of Academic All-America honors, and she is the only Cowgirl to have more than one such honor.
The 2018-19 season, Mattinson’s final season as an associate head coach before taking over as the head coach, was a tremendous one for the Cowgirls, as they won 25 games, the second-most in school history, played in their first MW Championship game and reached the quarterfinals of the WNIT for just the second time in program history. Bailee Cotton was named the league's Defensive Player of the Year and picked up All-Conference and All-Defensive team honors. Marta Gomez led the nation in three-point field goal percentage and was named All-MW. Karla Erjavec was added to the MW All-Freshman team after setting the program's freshman single-season assist record with 124.
During his time on the Cowgirl bench as an assistant coach and associate head coach, Mattinson has seen six of the top-10 scoring teams, six of the top-10 free throw shooting teams, all of the top-10 three point total teams, seven of the top-10 three-point percentage teams, five of the top-10 rebounding teams, six of the top-10 assisting teams and six of the top-10 shot blocking teams in Cowgirl history.
In the past eighteen seasons, the Cowgirls have had 15 winning seasons and reached the postseason 11 times. Those 15 winning seasons represent over half of the total number of winning seasons in 48 years of Cowgirl basketball.
Mattinson's professional coaching career began at Weber State as a graduate assistant coach with the men's basketball program during the 1981-82 season. From 1982-1987, he was the head boy's basketball coach at Rock Springs High School. He earned Wyoming State Coach of the Year honors and was named Conference Coach of the Year twice. From 1987-90, Mattinson was an assistant men's coach at Western Wyoming Community College. He was elevated to an Assistant Athletics Director and the Head Men's Basketball Coach in 1991 and held the position until 1998. For the 1998-99 season, he became an assistant with the women's program for one year. Mattinson was a business education teacher at Rock Springs High School since 1982 before taking the position of Principal at East Junior High School in June of 2001. He joined former head coach Joe Legerski's staff here at Wyoming following the 2002-03 season.
Mattinson began his college basketball career as a student-athlete at Casper College for head coach Oscar "Swede" Erickson. While there, he played on a team that went 36-4 with a sixth-place finish at the NJCAA Tournament. Mattinson then moved on to a three-year career at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where he played for legendary head coach Neil McCarthy. At Weber State, Mattinson played on teams that competed in two NCAA tournaments. He graduated from Weber State with a bachelor of science degree in business education in 1981. He then completed a master of sports science degree from the United States Sports Academy in 1988 and earned his principal endorsement from the University of Wyoming.
Mattinson, and his wife, Carey are the parents of three children, stepson Morgan Splichal, stepdaughter Tiffany Paradis and son Ashton.
The Mattinson File
Coaching History
1981-82 – Weber State as a graduate assistant
1982-87 – Rock Springs High School as the head boy's coach
1987-90 – Western Wyoming CC as assistant men's coach
1991-98 – Western Wyoming CC as head men's coach
1998-99 – Western Wyoming CC as volunteer assistant women's coach
2003-06 – University of Wyoming as assistant coach
2006-19 – University of Wyoming as associate head coach
2019-present – University of Wyoming as head coach
Postseason Berths (10)
NCAA Tournament: 2 appearances (2008, 2021)
Women's National Invitation Tournament: 8 appearances (2006, 2007 Championship, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2019)
Playing Experience
1977-78 – Casper College
1979-81 – Weber State