Mr. Matkin is a World History teacher at Rocky Mountain High School and was the head girls basketball coach for eight years at Rocky as well. He has been teaching for 18 years and has been at Rocky for half of those. Prior, he taught at Highland High School in Ault, Colorado, “It was a school of 250 students, and as a coach you are the bus driver, the trainer, and the coach. It was a really good experience and opportunity to come back here where I graduated and teach and work with these kids.”

Matkin was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, which is very close to downtown Detroit. He moved to Colorado when he was three years-old. His family owned an ice cream shop in downtown Detroit and after some threatening things happened to his family there, his mom made the decision to move back to where she was from–Colorado.  

After graduating from Rocky, Matkin had a football scholarship and went to Chadron State in Nebraska for two years. “I went in thinking that I was going to change the world as a business person, but I struggled with accounting in college. I went through a couple of semesters figuring out what I wanted to do,” he said.

He also had an opportunity to play basketball as a walk on, but due to his studies, it was too difficult to play two sports in college. When he transferred to CSU, he started getting into coaching and working with kids in the community. “So a lightbulb went on and realized, I wanted to be a teacher and wanted to coach and be able to work with kids even outside of the classroom,” he said. He played football at CSU for another two years.

Matkin had always admired teachers growing up. He said,“Seeing how teachers can connect and build relationships and I think in the back of my mind that is what I wanted to do.” When at Rocky, as a senior, Matkin was paired up with kids at Memorial Elementary as a big brother relationship “I just genuinely enjoy being a role model and being able to connect and build those relationships. As I got into coaching and finishing up my college degree, just being able to see and make a difference and be there for kids that sometimes is the best thing for them. That was kind of the deciding factor to me becoming a teacher,” he added.  

When asked about Rocky, he said, “I love teaching at Rocky because the kids are incredible and the staff is amazing. I graduated from Rocky and there are just so many things that go into making this the perfect fit, and I honestly couldn’t ask for a better place to teach.”

When Matkin was at Highland High School, he was the head girls basketball coach and the head football coach. Here at Rocky, he does not coach anymore for the school but he does coach private lessons and coaches his kid’s basketball and football teams.

Matkin teaches World History and Pre-AP World History in room 406 in Maroon Bells. He loves to build relationships and connect with his students. Students can find Matkin in his room or in his office in Maroon Bells.