WIAA Names Matusinec as Scholar Athlete

Kate Matusinec, a senior at Muskego High School, has been named a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) Scholar Athlete, a designation recognizing the positive impact of interscholastic athletics.

“It was kind of a challenge,” Matusinec said about achieving high standards in both academics and sports. She has a 4.3 GPA and has taken part in varsity track for 4 years and varsity tennis for two. “There was a lot of balancing of school and
sports and staying up real late.”

Her efforts paid off. She scored a 33 on the ACT and has been accepted to UW-Madison, St. Norbert College in DePere, and Fordham University in New York. She aspires to be a journalist and is considering majors in journalism and anthropology.

Last year, Matusinec qualified for State in the 4 x 100 relay, 4 x 200 relay, and the
open 200. She said her coach, Richard Raney, inspired her.

“He definitely motivated me, making me run events that I really didn’t want to, like the 400, which is the dreaded race for sprinters, but that were good training
for me,” she said. “It’s good to race higher than you actually run. It’s really
hard but it helps.”

In tennis, the WIAA recognized Matusinec's speed, work ethic and sportsmanship. She’s also interested in current events and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel recently published a letter she wrote, expressing her concern for the public to pay more attention to situations like the earthquake in Japan, in addition to local and state issues.

“A lot of adults had not been talking about it (the earthquake) at all and were
focusing on what’s going on politically in Madison, and I thought, why are we
thinking about that and not about what is going on in other parts of the world?”
she said. “I think sometimes we need to focus more on what matters most.”