Zach Mueller ’21 arrived on campus as a freshman football player from Wisconsin who barely knew a soul. Aside from the recruiting process, he didn’t know much about Illinois State University. When he graduates during Illinois State’s winter commencement ceremony at CEFCU Arena on Saturday, December 16, he will have in his possession a second degree and lifelong memories and friendships.
Mueller grew up in Weston, Wisconsin, about 90 minutes from Green Bay and 330 miles from Normal. He loves his Packers and the Milwaukee Bucks. An all-around athlete, he was first-team All-State in football his senior season, played basketball, and was a state qualifier in shot and discus all four years of high school.
“I really hadn’t heard of Illinois State, but I had an opportunity here where I could play football and pursue an undergraduate degree I loved,” Mueller said.
He earned a four-year, full athletic scholarship, and at 6-5, 300 pounds he fit nicely as right guard on the offensive line. Despite being in the trenches, he almost made it through without an injury until suffering a thumb dislocation near the end of his career.
“It was a fun, amazing experience looking back,” Mueller said. “The adversity you go through on a football field can help prepare you for going into the real world. The coaching staff was great, and Coach Spack is a great coach. I had a great experience playing for him.”
Two years ago, Mueller received his bachelor’s degree in geography with a minor in environmental studies, and he earned a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) certification. Now he’s putting the finishing touches on a master’s degree in recreation administration in the School of Kinesiology and Recreation. He wants a career where he can advocate for parks and recreation and make his community a better place to live and work.
“Geography and GIS have been a good way to develop skills that were technical and that would allow me to make an impact on the world,” Mueller said. “There are many disciplines I could go into, but the experience has guided me to the parks and rec side.
“My goal is to work for a park district somewhere in Illinois doing park planning.”
“ISU is a special place to me. This has been my home for over five years. It will be weird to be gone, but it’s time to leave the nest.”
Zach Mueller
Mueller has been a busy college student. He was a member of Gamma Theta Upsilon, the geography honor society, and he participated in a research project led by Dr. Nicky Wu during graduate school. He served two summer internships with McLean County Building and Zoning, and he just finished up as an intern with the Illinois Association of Park Districts (IAPD) at its headquarters in Springfield. He knows the value of internships for helping start a career.
“Internships are important for getting practical experience and for building connections with people already in the industry,” he said. “I feel fortunate that IAPD has invested in me. The experience has allowed me to network with people all over the state from Chicago to St. Louis and throughout Central Illinois.”
For McLean County, he helped with digitizing construction permit and zoning case information using GIS. He also used GIS to update a historical plat map database. At IAPD, he’s been working on a comprehensive policy and procedure manual of best practices that park districts can use as a reference for policy and procedure operations.
Despite all the demands on his time, Mueller excelled in the classroom. As an undergraduate, he graduated summa cum laude. He maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA through his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Like his contemporaries, Mueller found himself going to college during a global pandemic while living away from home for the first time. When COVID-19 hit in the spring of 2020, he was on the road.
“I was on a geography class trip with other students and Dr. RJ Rowley, and we were staying at a state park in New Mexico,” he said. “We had to cut our trip short a day or two because of COVID. And when we got back to campus, it was like a ghost town.”
Mueller said remote learning was a challenge, and he missed his peers and in-person classes, but his professors did a good job helping their students. The pandemic, while difficult, was not all negative, he said.
“It was a double-edged sword in the sense that it provided me with an opportunity to find out what was important in life,” Mueller said. “Before COVID, I spent 11 months out of the year down at ISU studying, playing, and training and did not spend a whole lot of time with my family. I was able to take a break from how fast life was moving.
“The hardest part was when I was back on campus for athletics, and everyone was so isolated, and there were no students here. It made it very difficult mentally for a long time.”
An only child, he’ll celebrate graduation day with his mother, Paula, a nurse, who helped get him “through the hard times and good times” and with his grandmother. Though they will spend a chunk of his final hours on campus packing up his apartment, he’s grateful for their love and support that helped him get to this day.
Mueller will also be planning a wedding soon with his fiancée, Samantha Spillane ’23, who is a graduate of Mennonite College of Nursing. Choosing to be a Redbird turned out to be a good decision.
“ISU is a special place to me,” Mueller said. “This has been my home for over five years. It will be weird to be gone, but it’s time to leave the nest.”
This story is one of a series of profiles on Redbirds who are graduating this December. Two commencement ceremonies to recognize more than 1,300 graduates will take place Saturday, December 16, at CEFCU Arena. For more information about how Illinois State is celebrating commencement, visit the Graduation Services website.
