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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTS
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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Shooting High
Coach Nadine Muzerall ’97 leads the Buckeyes to their first NCAA championship.
.When Nadine Muzerall ’97 took over the Ohio State women’s hockey team in 2016, she inherited a program that had never qualified for the NCAA tournament. On March 20, she coached the Buckeyes to their first-ever national championship with a 3-2 defeat of Minnesota Duluth. The Buckeyes “looked brilliant,” Muzerall says. “This was one of the best hockey games they played all year.”
It’s a sport in which she has excelled on both sides of the glass. The Mississauga, Ontario, native first picked up a hockey stick at age 3 and recounts the days she and her brother spent preparing to play. “We flooded our backyard for days and days, thumb to hose to spray water on top of the grass, pack down more snow, switch fingers, and then he’d take a turn while my two thumbs thawed out.” When KUA Coach Peter Bartlett came calling, Muzerall’s mother urged her to consider the academic and athletic opportunity. “She was thinking big picture, of course, now that I’m a mom I understand,” says Muzerall. “I needed the individual attention of 10 to 12 people in class. And the personal relationships with the faculty and students and the feeling of family and support was much appreciated when I was a 13-year-old away from home.”
In Meriden she played hockey and soccer—winning New England championships in both sports—and ran track. She went on to play at the University of Minnesota, where she was a two-time All-American and her record of 139 goals still stands. There, she also studied adolescent behavior and wondered how to combine her desire to work with young adults with her passion for sport. “That’s where [KUA Coach] Lori Charpentier came in,” says Muzerall. “She told me Northfield Mount Hermon was looking for a hockey coach and a soccer coach.” But the transition from player to coach was challenging. “You can’t control the outcome. You can only prepare them as best as you think, and it’s then something that you pass on and hope that they execute.” Muzerall eventually returned Minnesota as an assistant coach and scored the distinction of winning multiple national championships—2000 and 2001 on the ice; 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016 behind the bench.
Then came the job offer from Columbus. In 2018, Muzerall says, when she took the head coaching job, she set a five-year goal to match her initial, five-year contract: to make a Frozen Four. When she made that goal in two years, she refocused on other goals. Muzerall has now coached her team into the NCAA tourney four times, reaching the Frozen Four in all three that were ultimately played. She has earned conference Coach of the Year honors three times in five years and hit various program milestones, including a the 32-win season that smashed the previous record of 24. And in an international testament to her coaching talent, three of her student-athletes represented their respective countries in this year’s Beijing Olympics, with one winning gold with Canada, another earning silver with Team USA, and a third backstopping the Swiss to the bronze medal match.
Now that the Buckeyes have completed one of the most improbable turnarounds in women’s college hockey history, Muzerall can take a moment to enjoy being on top. “This is something that’s forever,” she says. “The amount of pride that you left a legacy—it does feel very sweet.” K
TAKING A MOMENT
Head Coach Nadine Muzerall of the Ohio State Buckeyes reacts after the Buckeyes defeated the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs 3-2 during the Division I Women’s Ice Hockey Championship held at Pegula Ice Arena on March 20, 2022, in University Park, Pennsylvania.
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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Don Lowery ’73
Nielsen’s senior VP shapes the future of media.
Don Lowery ’73 is captivated by the evolving landscape of media consumption. For almost two decades he has tracked the transition from network and cable television to streaming, which now rivals traditional viewing, at rating giant Nielsen. “I have been right in the middle of the digital revolution,” he says. “It has been exciting and challenging to be part of this massive change.”
Much of Lowery’s early work with Nielsen involved introducing electronic technologies to more effectively track what audiences tuned in to watch. “When I joined, a significant part of our measurement was done asking viewers to complete handwritten diaries,” he says. “That seems almost unbelievable today.”
Now senior vice president of community engagement, Lowery uses information gathered at Nielsen to connect communities with creators. “I establish relationships with a variety of stakeholders—including public officials, business and community leaders, advocacy and industry organizations—to keep them informed so they can feel confident that our reports are accurate and inclusive.” Efforts to confirm what audiences want prompted Lowery to engage with leaders in communities of color. This outreach has provided more reliable data to companies developing content for viewers traditionally underrepresented in media measurement.
His push to expand access and equality goes beyond the numbers. “At Nielsen we have a robust program to encourage diversity in media measurement, and I am in regular contact to promote these efforts,” he says. Lowery also serves as an executive sponsor of Nielsen’s employee affinity group, Sustaining Active Black Leadership and Engagement, and is a fellow with CEO Action for Racial Equity, which advocates for public policies that improve healthcare, education, economic empowerment, and public safety.
His impact on the future of media stems from his interest in history. “I have always been grateful that Steve Bishop taught me that history was much more than dates and places,” says Lowery of a favorite KUA teacher. “History requires thinking much more broadly about all of the circumstances that preceded particular events and the long-term consequences.”
He applied this circumspect approach as a reporter and editor at the KUA student newspaper, then as a reporter at the student newspaper and radio station at Wesleyan, where he earned a degree in economics. Lowery honed his reporting chops at The Arizona Republic and The Boston Globe, earning a Pulitzer as part of a team covering desegregation of Boston public schools. He moved on to WHDH-TV (CBS) in Boston to write and present editorials—and develop partnerships with local businesses and community organizations for a series of public affairs campaigns. “I worked for almost 10 years in local television in Boston, and I loved its incredible ability to inform, educate, and entertain,” he says. “I have great respect for all of the professionals and the work they do, so it’s very important to me that we provide the industry with a high-quality product.” K
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Behind the Scenes
Chase McGough ’15 helps Hollywood set the stage on its biggest night.
When Chase McGough ’15 is behind the scenes at a major awards show, it’s in a very literal way. In March 2022, McGough was working as a technical designer with Hudson Scenic Studios in Yonkers, New York, when he was tasked with creating the stage design for the biggest night in cinema–the Oscars.
“We received the initial drawings and started working the same day our bid was approved, which is abnormal,” he explains. “Usually there’s more lead time and I’m collaborating with other designers, but in this case, we started immediately because there were so many design constraints.”
The first challenge was time; size and weight presented additional challenges. The 94th Academy Awards set was designed and built in New York, but the 70-by-40-foot set need to be broken down into pieces and shipped to Hollywood’s Dolby Theater for assembly. Furthermore, the components needed to be light enough to hang from line sets at the event facility. McGough designed a fanned set of fins that mimicked a loose spiral and used the lightest materials on the market to ensure the build went smoothly.
“Two of the biggest things I took away from doing theater at KUA were speed and confidence in what I was doing,” says McGough, who went on to study at Ithaca College. “Anyone can learn to do what I do, but to do it at this speed is a totally different story. I knew how to cut lumber and nail things together, but it takes thousands of hours to master a craft and build confidence. One of the most valuable things about KUA theater was putting in those hours. Without that, I probably would have ended up working in IT.”
He fondly recalls working on KUA’s dance concerts alongside dance teacher Kay McCabe. The freedom he enjoyed while producing events with the dance program empowered him to learn more about programming lighting. This experience afforded him a broader understanding of how to translate the artistic visions of clients into plans that are feasible to build onstage. This is the backbone of his work to this day.
“You learn that the number of fingers in the pie grows exponentially when you’re doing commercial work,” he says. “Producers, owners, builders, designers, and the accountant all speak a different language, but they all need to be happy. Meanwhile, you’re still trying to create something viable.”
With the Oscars wrapped for this year, McGough is now tackling technical designs for Trading Places: The Musical, as well as several projects for Broadway, Disney, and Universal Studios. No matter the project, his ability to align numerous moving pieces ensures every project has a satisfying ending. K
