40 Fun Facts About Tennessee State University

Which talk show host earned her Tennessee State degree in 1987, more than a decade after leaving for a TV job?

Oprah Winfrey handed in her final paper in 1987, by which time her talk show was already airing nationwide. She had won her place on campus through an oratory contest scholarship.

Which Tennessee State sprinter overcame childhood polio to win three gold medals at the 1960 Olympics?

Wilma Rudolph wore a leg brace for years as a child, yet became the first American woman to win three track and field golds at a single Games.

In 2023 Tennessee State's Aristocrat of Bands became the first college marching band to win which major award?

A Grammy went to the band's gospel album The Urban Hymnal, months after it became the first marching band ever nominated.

Tennessee State's Richard Dent, an eighth-round draft pick, was named MVP of Super Bowl XX with which team?

The Chicago Bears took Dent 203rd overall in 1983, and three seasons later he was the star of their 46–10 rout of New England.

Which team made Tennessee State defensive end Ed "Too Tall" Jones the first overall pick of the 1974 NFL draft?

The Dallas Cowboys kept Jones for 15 seasons, apart from 1979, when he walked away from football to try professional boxing.

Tennessee State golf graduate Sean Foley became swing coach to which golf superstar in the summer of 2010?

Tiger Woods hired the Canadian in 2010, and Foley has also coached Justin Rose and Lydia Ko. He played on the varsity golf team in Nashville.

Which actress plays Tennessee State's pioneering men's golf coach Catana Starks in the film From the Rough?

Taraji P. Henson plays Starks, a swimming coach who took over the school's new men's golf team in 1986 and recruited players from around the world.

Which Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL running back coached Tennessee State football from 2021 to 2024?

Eddie George, who won the Heisman in 1995, was named his league's Coach of the Year in 2024 and then left for Bowling Green.

Which coach, a student of James Naismith, led Tennessee State to three straight national basketball titles from 1957?

John McLendon made Tennessee State the first historically Black college to win a national basketball title, and he is credited with pioneering the fast break and the full-court press.

Tennessee State Tigerbelle Wyomia Tyus was the first athlete, man or woman, to retain an Olympic title in which event?

100 metres gold in 1964 and again in 1968, the second time in a world record 11.08 seconds, gave Tyus a double that no sprinter had managed before.

Tennessee State long jumper Ralph Boston broke a 25-year-old world record in 1960 that had belonged to which athlete?

Jesse Owens had held the long jump record since 1935. Boston followed up with Olympic gold weeks later, winning by a single centimetre.

Which coach led the Tennessee State Tigerbelles for 44 years and twice headed the US Olympic women's track team?

Ed Temple sent 40 Tigerbelles to the Olympics, and a statue of him now stands beside Nashville's minor league ballpark.

Tennessee State's Joe Gilliam was the first Black quarterback to start a post-merger NFL season opener for which team?

The Pittsburgh Steelers started Gilliam ahead of Terry Bradshaw in 1974, but he was benched after six games and Bradshaw reclaimed the job.

Tennessee State's downtown campus honours lawyer Avon Williams, a first cousin of which Supreme Court justice?

Thurgood Marshall's cousin won the long court fight that merged the University of Tennessee's Nashville branch into Tennessee State in 1979.

Fourteen Tennessee State students were expelled in 1961 for taking part in which civil rights campaign?

The Freedom Rides cost the 14 students their places under pressure from the state, and the university awarded them honorary doctorates in 2008.

Tennessee State graduate Xernona Clayton, who once persuaded a Klan leader to quit, organised events for which leader?

Martin Luther King Jr. had her organising events for his Atlanta campaign group from 1965, and she later became the first Black Southerner to host a daily prime-time talk show.

In 1961 Tennessee State's Aristocrat of Bands became the first HBCU band to perform at which president's inauguration?

John F. Kennedy's inauguration came six years after the band became the first from an HBCU to appear on national television, at an NFL game in 1955.

Saxophonist Hank Crawford, who studied music at Tennessee State, became musical director for which soul and R&B star?

Ray Charles relied on Crawford as musical director before the saxophonist, a veteran of Tennessee State's Jazz Collegians, launched a solo career.

Jimmy Blanton took up the double bass at Tennessee State before joining which bandleader's orchestra in 1939?

Duke Ellington offered Blanton the job the night they met, and the young bassist went on to pioneer the jazz bass solo.

Tennessee State alumni Dick Barnett and Anthony Mason both played in the NBA Finals for which team?

The New York Knicks won two championships with Barnett, famous for his kicked-back jump shot, and reached the 1994 Finals with Mason.

Carla Thomas, a hit-maker during her first year at Tennessee State, later cut a duets album with which soul singer?

Otis Redding and Thomas teamed up in 1967 for an album that reached the UK top 20, and she is often called the Queen of Memphis Soul.

Four Tennessee State Tigerbelles made up the entire US women's relay team that won 1960 Olympic gold in which city?

Rome saw the quartet set a world record of 44.4 seconds in the semi-final before taking gold, all four having trained under the same college coach.

Aristocat the Tiger is the mascot of Tennessee State, whose teams compete in which pair of school colours?

Blue and white also name the Blue-White game, the scrimmage that closes the Tigers' spring football practice each year.

Which politician told graduates she was now a Tiger after giving Tennessee State's commencement address in May 2022?

Kamala Harris was vice president at the time, and the university hooded her with an honorary doctorate at the same ceremony.

For three decades TSU's Tigers played the Southern Heritage Classic in Memphis against which rival from Mississippi?

Jackson State and the Tigers are each about 200 miles from Memphis, and their yearly meeting drew crowds of around 50,000.

Glenda Glover, Tennessee State's first female president, was also international president of which sorority from 2018?

Alpha Kappa Alpha chose Glover as its leader 47 years after she joined as a Tennessee State student, when she ran the campus chapter.

Tennessee State biology graduate Levi Watkins helped perform the first human implant of which heart device in 1980?

Automatic defibrillator implants began with that operation at Johns Hopkins, months after Watkins finished training there. He was also Vanderbilt medical school's first Black graduate.

Tennessee State engineer Jesse Russell, hired straight from campus by Bell Labs, pioneered which technology?

Digital cellular networks grew out of his 1980s work at Bell Labs, including a base station design he patented in 1992.

Until 1968 Tennessee State was known as Tennessee A&I; what did the letters A and I stand for?

Agricultural and Industrial training was the founding mission in 1912, when the first 247 students also cleared rocks and harvested crops to keep the school running.

Which Tennessee State defensive end was NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1968 and entered the Hall of Fame in 2014?

Claude Humphrey was drafted third overall by Atlanta and started every game as a rookie, having left campus with a school record 39 sacks.

Which Tennessee State passer became the first Black quarterback drafted in the first round, by Oakland in 1968?

Eldridge Dickey reportedly outplayed second-round pick Ken Stabler in training camp, yet the Raiders moved him to wide receiver.

Which Tennessee State Tigerbelle won both Olympic relay golds within an hour in 1984 and later coached the team?

Chandra Cheeseborough ran on the winning 4x100 and 4x400 teams less than an hour apart, and added a silver in the individual 400 metres.

Which undrafted Tennessee State forward was named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team in 2018?

Robert Covington worked his way up through the D-League, where he was Rookie of the Year and scored a record 33 points in its All-Star Game.

Which Tennessee State graduate played Harlem gangster Bumpy Jonas in the 1971 film Shaft and its sequel?

Moses Gunn was an Obie-winning stage actor who also earned an Emmy nomination for the 1977 miniseries Roots.

Which Tennessee State graduate became the first Black member of Congress from Tennessee, representing Memphis from 1975?

Harold Ford Sr. was a mortician in his family's funeral business until 1974, then held the seat for 11 terms.

Which coach won seven Black college football titles at Tennessee State and has the campus boulevard named for him?

John Merritt went 172–33–7 in Nashville and turned down Wichita State in 1973, a job that would have made him major college football's first Black head coach.

Hale Stadium, the on-campus football ground Tennessee State opened in 1953, is known by which nickname?

The Hole hosted ten unbeaten seasons before football moved out in 1999, and a renovation for the university's centennial in 2012 brought games back.

Tennessee State, unusually for an HBCU, joined which mostly non-HBCU athletic league in 1986?

The Ohio Valley Conference had no other historically Black member for more than three decades, since most Division I HBCUs play in the MEAC or SWAC.

Tennessee State forward Leonard Robinson, the NBA's top rebounder in 1977–78, was best known by which nickname?

Truck Robinson averaged 15.7 rebounds a game for the New Orleans Jazz that season and made the All-NBA First Team.

Tennessee State quarterback Joe Gilliam took his nickname from which Nashville thoroughfare that runs past the campus?

Jefferson Street Joe grew up around the campus, where his father was the defensive coordinator for the football team.