Former Iona College student Nick Hydo was awarded an Emmy for his work as Technical Director during the U.S. Open Tennis Championship.

The Emmy award winner worked with ESPN during the championship, helping lead the camera work for the event.

Hydo graduated in 2018 and went on to work with Madison Square Garden after graduating. He says the experience from Iona helped him get to where he is today.

“I could not have done it without any of my professors or the friends I made here,” Hydo said. “They all helped me along the way, pushed me to learn and pushed me to get an internship, which is what started this whole thing.”

One of the most important things in Hydo’s career has been connections, he said. Like any other industry, it’s a smaller world than you think and knowing others can help you secure jobs for the present and far future. Everyone watches out for each other’s back in the industry and help push each other forward by recommending their colleagues to companies. Hydo does the same with his colleagues as well.

Getting an internship helped jumpstart his career as well. Hydo got a job with MSG quickly because he interned there during his senior year, making his name known and making the connections that he says are important to a successful career.

Being a technical director is a difficult job to perform. Decisions need to be made in split seconds and everything needs to be perfect for the live broadcast. Hydo says that pressure is what makes the job fun, exciting and challenging.

“You need [the pressure] to push you,” Hydo said. “If you make a mistake, you just learn from it or you learn on the fly and do it right. There’s no bad pressure.”

Hydo has always been a sports fan – mostly focused on hockey – but he’s never really watched tennis before working on the U.S. Open. Nonetheless, the lack of knowledge of the sport didn’t stop him from accepting the job, and it has turned out to be one of his favorite events to work on in his short but successful career. He hopes to work on the Olympics one day.