60 Fun Facts About MSU Trivia: Michigan State University

Michigan State was founded as the nation's first agricultural college in which year?

It opened as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, and its name changed five more times before settling on the current one.

Which Michigan governor signed the bill that founded the college?

Bingham signed it on February 12, and the new college's first president was Joseph R. Williams.

Michigan State's main campus is in which city?

The state capital, Lansing, sits right next door, which is why the university and state government share so much of the same skyline.

The MSU campus is built along the banks of which waterway?

The river gives its name to the fight song's most famous line about its banks, and 'The Rock', a boulder students repaint constantly, sits just north of it.

In 1863 the state made the college the nation's first land-grant institution under which 1862 law?

Abraham Lincoln signed the act in 1862; Michigan moved faster than any other state to name a beneficiary.

In which year was the name shortened to 'Michigan State University', dropping 'of Agriculture and Applied Science'?

It had been Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science for nine years before the trim.

MSU's contiguous campus covers roughly how many acres?

Only about 2,000 of those acres are developed; the rest is farms, woods and research land.

What are Michigan State's official colours?

'Go Green, Go White' is the call-and-response you will hear at every home game.

In 2004 Sparty became the first Big Ten mascot to win what?

The foam-costume Sparty only dates from 1989; Muscle and Fitness magazine once voted him the buffest mascot in the country.

Why was the original 1945 'Spartan' campus statue cast in terra cotta instead of metal?

A bronze replica finally replaced it in 2005, and the terra cotta original moved indoors to a Spartan Stadium annex.

Who sculpted the original 'Spartan' statue in 1945?

Jungwirth taught art at the college; his statue is one of the most-photographed spots on campus.

Sportswriter George S. Alderton chose "Spartans" as the team name in the 1920s instead of what alternative?

Before that the teams were simply the Aggies, a name that fit an agricultural college but not a school with big ambitions.

On May 20 of which year did the Big Ten vote to admit Michigan State, over Michigan's objections?

Football did not begin full conference play until 1953, which is why both years get quoted.

The Paul Bunyan Trophy, contested with Michigan since 1953, was donated by which Michigan governor?

Michigan State won the very first one, 14–6, in its inaugural year of Big Ten football.

The Paul Bunyan Trophy is a wooden statue of the lumberjack roughly how tall, not counting its base?

It stands on a five-foot base, so the whole thing towers over the players who carry it off the field.

The Land Grant Trophy, first contested in 1993, goes to the winner of the Spartans' game against which school?

Coaches George Perles and Joe Paterno designed it themselves, which may explain why it is routinely called the ugliest trophy in college football.

Until 2013 Michigan State and Notre Dame played each other for which prize?

The series ended with the Irish ahead 33–27–1.

The 1966 'Game of the Century' between Michigan State and Notre Dame ended in what score?

Notre Dame ran out the clock rather than risk a loss, a decision that is still argued about sixty years later.

How many football national championships does Michigan State claim in total?

Two of them are from the major wire-service polls; the rest come from other selectors in the 1950s and 1960s.

Which pair of seasons produced Michigan State's two wire-service football national titles?

Biggie Munn coached the first and Duffy Daugherty the second; Daugherty's teams claim four titles across the selectors.

Michigan State's 20–17 win in the 1988 Rose Bowl under George Perles came against which team?

The Spartans' two earlier Rose Bowl wins, in 1954 and 1956, were both against UCLA.

Which coach holds the Michigan State football record for most wins, with 114?

Dantonio coached from 2007 to 2019 and took the Spartans to the College Football Playoff.

After the 1999 regular season, Nick Saban abruptly left Michigan State to run which program?

He went 34–24–1 with the Spartans and never won a bowl game there, which nobody would have predicted from what came next.

When Spartan Stadium opened in 1923, what was it called?

It became Macklin Field in 1935 and Macklin Stadium in 1948 before taking its current name in 1957.

How big was the record TV audience for the 1979 Michigan State–Indiana State NCAA final?

It remains the most-watched college basketball game ever, and it launched the rivalry that carried the NBA through the 1980s.

Which Lansing native, the No. 1 pick in the 1979 NBA draft, led Michigan State to that year's NCAA title?

He got his nickname at 15 after a triple-double at Everett High School, and was Most Outstanding Player of the 1979 Final Four.

Who was named Most Outstanding Player when Michigan State beat Florida for the 2000 NCAA title?

Cleaves and his fellow 'Flintstones' from Flint were the heart of that team; the final score was 89–76.

Tom Izzo became Michigan State's head basketball coach in 1995, succeeding whom?

His predecessor retired after 19 seasons with nine NCAA appearances and three Big Ten titles, having hired Izzo as an assistant.

Tom Izzo grew up in Iron Mountain in the Upper Peninsula alongside which future NFL head coach?

The two were high-school teammates and later roommates at Northern Michigan University.

Tom Izzo was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in which year?

By then he had one national title, from 2000, and a stack of Final Four trips.

What is the student section at the Breslin Center called?

The arena seats 14,759, and the students are the loudest part of it.

Spartan great Draymond Green, whose No. 23 was retired in 2019, grew up in which Michigan city?

Golden State took him 35th overall in 2012, and he was the first Warrior ever named Defensive Player of the Year.

Spartan quarterback Kirk Cousins was drafted by Washington in 2012 in which round?

He went 102nd overall, weeks after the same team drafted Robert Griffin III second, and outlasted him comfortably.

Michigan State's third NCAA men's ice hockey championship came in which year?

The Spartans' first three hockey titles came in 1966, 1986 and 2007, spread across four decades; they play at Munn Ice Arena.

Zeke the Wonder Dog, a Spartan Stadium halftime fixture since 1977, is famous for doing what?

Every Zeke has been a Labrador retriever; the original was yellow, and later ones have been chocolate, black and red.

Beaumont Tower's carillon holds how many bells?

The 104-foot tower was completed in 1928, paid for at the suggestion of 1882 alumnus John W. Beaumont.

Beaumont Tower marks the site of which demolished building, the first ever constructed on the campus?

It was also the first building in America put up specifically to teach scientific farming.

'The Sower', the Art Deco bas-relief on Beaumont Tower, is by which sculptor?

Its inscription reads 'Whatsoever a Man Soweth', a nod to the school's farming roots.

The W. J. Beal Botanical Garden, founded in 1877, holds which distinction?

It sits just below Beaumont Tower and is essentially an outdoor teaching lab of labelled plants.

How many bottles of seeds did William Beal bury in 1879 for future scientists to dig up?

Each bottle held 50 seeds from 21 species. A bottle opened in 2000 saw two species sprout, and the study is scheduled to end in 2100.

MSU botanist William Beal performed the first documented genetic crosses in the 1870s to produce what?

He crossed eight-rowed Indian corn into 24-rowed varieties that bloomed earlier and yielded more.

Barnett Rosenberg discovered cisplatin in 1965 after a platinum compound stopped which bacterium from dividing?

The cells kept growing without dividing, into filaments up to 300 times normal length; the FDA approved cisplatin in 1978.

In the 1930s MSU dairy scientist G. Malcolm Trout improved the process for doing what to milk?

The MSU Dairy Store's ice cream is the tastiest surviving tribute to the department's work.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, completed in 2022, is funded chiefly by which arm of the federal government?

The three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar facility replaced the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and lets physicists make isotopes that do not exist naturally on Earth.

Which architect designed the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, which opened on campus in 2012?

Its slashing steel folds are about as far from the campus's red-brick collegiate gothic as a building can get.

What is the name of the independent student newspaper at MSU?

It is one of the largest student-run papers in the country and independent of the university.

John Hannah, MSU's longest-serving president, also became the first chairman of which federal body?

He ran the university from 1941 to 1969, growing enrolment from 15,000 to 38,000, and later led USAID.

Cowles House, one of MSU's original faculty houses, was later converted into what?

It sits in the leafy north campus near the 'Sacred Space' ringed by West Circle Drive.

Which director of the Evil Dead and Spider-Man films is a Michigan State alumnus?

He shot the first Evil Dead with friends from Michigan on a budget that would not cover a Spartan Stadium tailgate today.

MSU alumnus and professor Jim Cash co-wrote which 1986 blockbuster?

Cash and writing partner Jack Epps Jr. also wrote Legal Eagles and Dick Tracy, and Cash kept teaching screenwriting on campus throughout.

For which novel did Richard Ford become the first to win both the Pulitzer and the PEN/Faulkner Award?

It is the second of his Frank Bascombe novels; the distractors here are all his too.

Which Michigan State alumnus wrote the novel Bird Box, the basis for the Netflix film?

Malerman is also the frontman of the Detroit rock band The High Strung.

Which star of The Godfather attended Michigan State?

He arrived on campus dreaming of a football career, which did not work out, and left for acting school in New York.

Football at Michigan State began as a club sport in 1885 and gained varsity status in which year?

Six national titles, a dozen conference crowns and the Game of the Century all followed from that modest start.

In which year did the college first admit women?

There were no women's residence halls, so early female students boarded with faculty families or made the stagecoach trip from Lansing.

Whose 1946 withdrawal from the Big Ten opened the seat Michigan State later filled?

Chicago had dropped football after 1939, and president John Hannah lobbied hard for the vacancy despite opposition from Michigan.

How many fans watched the 2001 'Cold War' outdoor hockey game at Spartan Stadium?

A rink was built in the middle of the football stadium for the game against Michigan, which ended in a 3-3 tie and was then the best-attended hockey game ever.

Michigan State's men's soccer team shared national titles in which two consecutive years?

The Spartans shared the crowns with Saint Louis and then Maryland; the program had begun play in 1956 with a win over Michigan.

Michigan State's softball team won which national title in 1976?

They were the only team east of the Mississippi to win it until Michigan did in 2005, coached by Carol Hutchins, who played shortstop on that 1976 Spartan team.

MSU has the world's first state-funded school in which medical field?

MSU also pioneered academic study of packaging, music therapy, hospitality business and supply chain management.