December 13, 2006: Whatever happened to...

Whatever happened to Claire Beth Tomasiewicz Nogay ’79?

When it comes to sports, Claire Beth “C.B.” Tomasiewicz Nogay ’79 is a Renaissance woman. As Princeton’s first female All-American basketball player, she holds the third-highest career scoring record in the University’s history — behind only Bill Bradley ’65 and Sandi Bittler ’90. When basketball season was over, Nogay headed to the softball field, playing for a professional team during the summers of her undergraduate years — the first female Princeton student to play pro sports.

Despite her successes on the court and the field, Nogay never intended to pursue a career in professional sports. Though she was drafted for professional basketball, she wanted to use her Princeton education in civil engineering. Now senior vice president of Verizon’s Wholesale Division in Basking Ridge, N.J., Nogay and her husband, Richard Nogay ’78, live in Caldwell, N.J., and have two children in college.

Sports are still important to Nogay. Her daughter is an equestrian, and after years of being a horse-show mom, Nogay took up the sport herself. She has been show-jumping for more than four years, thriving on its mental and physical challenges. She hasn’t forgotten basketball, however. She has coached both girls’ and boys’ travel teams, and sometimes shoots hoops with her husband. Who tends to win? Says Nogay: “I do the best that I can to help him out and still maintain a healthy marriage.”

By L.H.