Aidan Matthews comes from a crazy-loving Coug family. Her mom has the WSU tattoo to prove it. Growing up, Aidan learned three colors and two lessons: Crimson and gray good. Purple bad.
But now she’s all yellow all the time.
See, just a few years after graduation, Aidan is working for one of the most talked-about teams in America: the Savannah Bananas.
The road to this point definitely wasn’t straight. It rarely is.
Like a lot of students, Aidan’s route included trying to find her lane. She thought about athletic training, then psychology, before stumbling across Sport Management on WSU’s website.
One class with Tammy Crawford sealed it.
“I loved everything she had to say about sport, and I could see my career going in that direction,” Aidan says.
From there, she dove in. This inluded internships, practicums, and a special love for baseball operations. That combination led her to an internship with the Savannah Bananas in 2024.
Building something new
What’s wild is that her role didn’t even exist before she showed up. Aidan became the first person in Banana Ball operations (administrative side), and she’s been shaping the job ever since.
“I’ve kind of built my entire internship and job from the ground up,” she says. What started as a semester-long internship grew to seasonal extensions, then an hourly role, and now a full-time spot on the team.
Her boss, Adam Virant, said Aidan’s adaptability is the biggest skill a student can develop as they’re coming out of college.
“Aidan came into a very chaotic environment, unlike anywhere else in sports,” he says. “It’s Minor League Baseball but accelerated. She’s done a great job learning, being flexible with the chaos and becoming a problem solver.
Baseball, but different
The Bananas are known for “Banana Ball,” their fast-paced, fan-first spin on baseball. With two-hour time limits, dance-offs, and fans catching foul balls for outs, they’re not changing baseball itself, but they’re certainly changing how people experience it.
That disruption makes for a perfect backdrop to Aidan’s own story: a recent alumna carving out a brand-new role in a sport she loves. She’s not just keeping up with the chaos, she’s thriving in it.
But Aidan focuses less on herself and gives more credit to the Sport Management program for pushing her outside Pullman to get internships and real-world experience.
While she said she loved all her faculty members, Adain singles out Linda Chalich for preparing her with the early-career nuts and bolts: resumes, cover letters, interview prep. And one other thing: pushing her harder than she thought she could go.
“She honestly prepared me for the real-world industry and what it’s going to look like,” Aidan says.
Banana Ball is a relatively new experiment, albeit one that is now selling out some of the nation’s largest stadiums, including a two-day stint at T-Mobile Park in Seattle when the Mariners were out of town. But even though the Bananas are making waves in baseball and it appears the future is bright for the team, Aidan doesn’t know where her career will ultimately take her.
She does, however, always acknowledge where she came from.
“Being a Coug is everything. It’s my life.”
###