Support Staff Jason Nightingale Volunteer Assistant Coach First Season Lake Superior State '02
Jason Nightingale begins his first season as the volunteer assistant coach for the Notre Dame hockey team. He replaces T.J. Jindra ‘07, who moved from volunteer assistant with the Irish to a full-time assistant coaching position at Alaska-Anchorage in May of 2011. Nightingale should be no stranger to Irish hockey fans or even hockey fans in the Michiana area for that matter. He joins the Notre Dame coaching staff after spending the past two seasons (2009-11) as the head coach of Culver Academy’s Under-16 Tier I boys team.
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While at Culver, he also worked as a physics instructor, teaching junior level courses. A 2002 graduate of Lake Superior State with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering, he was named the outstanding student-athlete in engineering and the outstanding graduate in engineering in 2002. A native of Cheboygan, Mich., Nightingale played for the Lakers from 1998-02. During his four seasons, he played in 112 games at forward, scoring 28 goals with 21 assists for 49 points. He served as an alternate team captain in 2000-01 and was the team’s most valuable forward that year. Before attending Lake Superior, he spent a season in the United States Hockey League (USHL) with the Des Moines Buccaneers (1997-98). During his year in Des Moines, he was an alternate captain and helped the Bucs to the Anderson Cup as the regular season champions and then USA Hockey’s Junior A national championship. He also played for the USHL Select team that won a gold medal at the 1997 Four Nations Tournament in Fussen, Germany. An outstanding student-athlete, Nightingale moved on to Notre Dame where he won a graduate student fellowship in mechanical engineering and applied mathematics from 2003-07. He earned his Masters of Science in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering from Notre Dame in 2007 and is currently working on his Ph.D in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
and Mathematics. While at Notre Dame working on his Masters, Jason served as a teaching and research assistant (2003-08) and is back in that role again while working on his Ph.D. During his time as a graduate student at Notre Dame, Jason got his start in coaching from 2006-08 when he served as the head coach at Marian High School in Mishawaka, Ind. Nightingale moved on to Culver Academy as an assistant on the Under-16 team in 2008-09, before taking over as head coach in 2009. He has been involved with USA Hockey’s coaching program in each of the last two years, working at the Boys Select 14 National Developmental Camp in 2009 and 2010 and at the Rocky Mountain District Camp in 2010. Jason is one of three hockey-playing brothers, as his younger brothers, Adam and Jared, each played in the CCHA. He played two seasons at Lake Superior with his brother, Adam, who transferred to Michigan State from 2003-05. Brother, Jared, spent four seasons with the Spartans from 2002-06. Nightingale and his wife, Alice, an All-American basketball player at Lake Superior, were married in the summer of 2003 and have one daughter, Ruth (3) and a son, Noah (1). Alice received her PhD from Notre Dame in 2010 and is a Faculty member in the deportment of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Notre Dame.
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