40 Fun Facts About San Jose State University

San Jose State once ran a southern branch campus, opened in 1882, that grew into which famous university?

UCLA began as a Los Angeles branch run from San Jose until 1887, created after a failed attempt to move the whole school south.

San Jose State sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised gloved fists on an Olympic podium at Games held where?

Mexico City hosted the 1968 Games, where Smith had just won sprint gold in world-record time and Carlos bronze. San Jose State later gave both men honorary doctorates.

San Jose State's football team, stranded in Hawaii by the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, was put to work for whom?

Honolulu's police employed the players to help shore up island defences and guard bases. The team had only just arrived for post-season games.

Which San Jose State engineering graduate has won Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island over a dozen times?

Joey Chestnut broke into competitive eating as a San Jose State student in 2005, at a deep-fried asparagus championship.

Krazy George Henderson, a cheerleader at San Jose State from 1968, is often credited with inventing which crowd move?

The stadium wave, by his account, first went round a ballpark at an Oakland Athletics playoff game in 1981, led by George and his hand drum.

Dian Fossey, a 1954 San Jose State graduate, spent nearly two decades in Rwanda studying which endangered animals?

Gorillas were far from her training: her degree was in occupational therapy, and she first worked at a children's hospital in Kentucky.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham both attended San Jose State before joining which rock band in 1975?

Fleetwood Mac gained the pair after Nicks, a speech communication major who planned to teach English, left college to pursue music with Buckingham.

Gordon Moore began his chemistry studies at San Jose State before co-founding which Silicon Valley chip maker in 1968?

Intel made his name, but Moore spent only his first college years at San Jose State, then transferred to Berkeley to finish his chemistry degree.

San Jose State graduate Gaylord Nelson, later a Wisconsin senator, founded which environmental observance in 1970?

Earth Day began as a nationwide teach-in on April 22, 1970, three decades after Nelson earned his political science degree in San Jose.

San Jose State's English department ran the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest from 1982 to 2025 to reward what?

The worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel was the goal, and the rules promised the winner only a pittance. Its founder, Professor Scott Rice, ended the contest in 2025.

Which author of The Joy Luck Club earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English and linguistics at San Jose State?

Amy Tan worked as a switchboard operator, carhop and bartender while in school, and did not start her first novel until 1985.

Which San Jose State graduate coached the 49ers to three Super Bowl titles and developed the West Coast offense?

Bill Walsh played tight end and defensive end at San Jose State, and wrote his master's thesis there on flank formation football.

San Jose State has won dozens of national collegiate titles in which martial art, long coached by Yosh Uchida?

Judo made its Olympic debut at Tokyo in 1964 with Uchida as the United States team coach and two of his San Jose State students on the squad.

San Jose State's main library, the first in the US shared by a university and a major city, is named after whom?

Martin Luther King Jr. gives his name to the eight-storey building, which opened in 2003 and was named Library of the Year by Library Journal a year later.

San Jose State's library houses the largest collection outside Europe devoted to which composer?

Beethoven has his own museum and archive on the fifth floor of the university library, the only institution of its kind in North America.

Which author of The Grapes of Wrath has a museum and archive devoted to him inside San Jose State's library?

John Steinbeck is the subject of a centre founded in 1971 by English professor Martha Heasley Cox, whose name it now carries.

Jan Koum dropped out of San Jose State in 1997 and later co-founded which messaging app, sold to Facebook in 2014?

WhatsApp came after Koum left his studies for an engineering job at Yahoo, and after Facebook itself had rejected his job application.

In 2015, San Jose State was listed as the top feeder school for which technology giant?

Apple employed more than 1,000 San Jose State graduates at the time, a bigger group than from any other university.

San Jose State's quarter-hour chimes, a gift of the class of 1947, ring the same tones as which famous London bell?

Big Ben's melody, known as the Westminster chimes, took over from an 1881 campus bell that had rung on special occasions until 1946.

In 1942, San Jose State's old gym was used to register which group before their removal to internment camps?

Japanese Americans were processed in the gym now named for coach Yosh Uchida, whose own relatives were sent to the camps.

What nickname did San Jose State's track program earn in the 1960s under sprint coach Bud Winter?

Speed City owed much to relaxation drills Winter had first taught wartime Navy pilots, which he said let a sprinter's pace come out.

Which former San Jose State quarterback coached the St. Louis Rams to victory in Super Bowl XXXIV?

Dick Vermeil started at quarterback for the 1957 team, which finished 3–7, and earned two physical education degrees at San Jose State.

San Jose State maths graduate Ed Oates co-founded which software giant with Larry Ellison and Bob Miner in 1977?

Oracle started life as Software Development Labs, founded nine years after Oates graduated from San Jose State.

Which San Jose State alumnus invented the noise-reduction system that carries his surname on cassette decks?

Ray Dolby was already working on early videotape recorder prototypes for Ampex during his San Jose State years, and founded his company in London in 1965.

Lou Henry earned a teaching credential in 1893 at what is now San Jose State, then married which future US president?

Herbert Hoover met her at Stanford, where she went on to become the first woman to earn a geology degree from the university.

San Jose State won three straight NCAA team titles from 1958 to 1960 in which sport, which the NCAA then discontinued?

Boxing lost its NCAA championship after 1960, when a Wisconsin fighter collapsed at the tournament and died a week later.

Which coaching legend, namesake of a famous youth football league, advised San Jose State's unbeaten 1939 team?

Pop Warner arrived after retiring from Temple, switched the offence to his double wing, and saw San Jose State become the nation's highest-scoring team.

San Jose State's teams became the Spartans in 1922; what first name does the school's Spartan mascot go by?

Sammy the Spartan inherited a nickname that replaced earlier ones including the Daniels, the Pedagogues and the Normalites.

San Jose State left the Western Athletic Conference in 2013 to join which other college sports league?

Mountain West membership was agreed in May 2012 alongside Utah State, and both schools moved the following year.

Which color joined gold and white as an official San Jose State color before the alma mater was adopted in 1929?

Blue was added after students in 1925 debated swapping gold and white for purple and white, and voted to keep tradition.

San Jose State's Victory Salute statue leaves an empty podium spot for which Australian sprinter, at his own request?

Peter Norman, the silver medallist, asked to be left off so that visitors could stand in his place, and a plaque there invites them to take a stand.

Which landmark, among the oldest buildings at San Jose State, did students and alumni save from demolition in 1963?

Tower Hall was designed to house the old campus bell, and it reopened in 1966 after petitions, telegrams and testimony swayed the state college trustees.

San Jose State's Lee Evans won 1968 Olympic gold with a world record that stood for two decades in which event?

400 metres was his fortress: his only defeat in a four-year streak came against teammate Tommie Smith, and their coach kept the two apart in practice.

Which San Jose State golfer won three straight US Women's Amateur titles from 1980 to 1982?

Juli Inkster grew up in nearby Santa Cruz and became the first woman since 1934 to win the title three years running.

Which San Jose State business graduate ran the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and then became commissioner of baseball?

Peter Ueberroth attended on an athletic scholarship and tried out for the 1956 US Olympic water polo team, then delivered a Games with a surplus of nearly $250 million.

Which San Jose State instructor and former discus thrower was the architect of the Olympic Project for Human Rights?

Harry Edwards first proved the idea by organising a boycott of San Jose State's opening football game in 1967 over discrimination in housing and campus life.

Which San Jose State alumnus founded El Teatro Campesino and directed the 1987 Ritchie Valens film La Bamba?

Luis Valdez arrived on a maths and physics scholarship, switched to English, and won a playwriting contest while still a student.

What was the name of San Jose State's annual student festival of play and sport, first held in 1929?

Spardi Gras began on George Washington's birthday, drew almost the whole student body, and was made an annual event. The yearbook last mentions it in 1960.

San Jose State's first miniature satellite, TechEdSat, flew in 2012 in partnership with which nearby NASA facility?

Ames Research Center in nearby Mountain View also awarded San Jose State $73.3 million in 2012, at the time the largest federal award in the university's history.

Around 3,000 people surrounded a San Jose State building in 1967 to protest recruiters from which napalm maker?

Dow Chemical made napalm used in the Vietnam War, and more than 200 students and teachers lay down on the ground in front of its recruiters.