Tennessee State University
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40 free Tennessee State University trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Tennessee State University opened in Nashville in 1912 as a small teacher-training school for Black students, and it is still the only state-funded historically Black university in Tennessee. From that start it grew into a campus whose graduates have reached the Olympic podium, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Congress and national television. This quiz turns the best TSU fun facts into questions: the university's earlier names and colours, the Tigerbelles track dynasty, a history-making band, record-setting football and basketball teams, students who put their education on the line during the civil rights movement, and alumni in music, film, medicine and engineering. It is written for students, alumni, Big Blue fans and anyone curious about HBCU history. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish with a few stories worth retelling at homecoming.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which talk show host earned her Tennessee State degree in 1987, more than a decade after leaving for a TV job?
Oprah Winfrey
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.
Q 02Which Tennessee State sprinter overcame childhood polio to win three gold medals at the 1960 Olympics?
Wilma Rudolph
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.
Q 03In 2023 Tennessee State's Aristocrat of Bands became the first college marching band to win which major award?
A Grammy
A Grammy went to the band's gospel album The Urban Hymnal, months after it became the first marching band ever nominated.
Q 04Tennessee State's Richard Dent, an eighth-round draft pick, was named MVP of Super Bowl XX with which team?
Chicago Bears
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.
Q 05Which team made Tennessee State defensive end Ed "Too Tall" Jones the first overall pick of the 1974 NFL draft?
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys kept Jones for 15 seasons, apart from 1979, when he walked away from football to try professional boxing.
Q 06Tennessee State golf graduate Sean Foley became swing coach to which golf superstar in the summer of 2010?
Tiger Woods
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.
Q 07Which actress plays Tennessee State's pioneering men's golf coach Catana Starks in the film From the Rough?
Taraji P. Henson
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.
Q 08Which Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL running back coached Tennessee State football from 2021 to 2024?
Eddie George
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.
Q 09Which coach, a student of James Naismith, led Tennessee State to three straight national basketball titles from 1957?
John McLendon
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.
Q 10Tennessee State Tigerbelle Wyomia Tyus was the first athlete, man or woman, to retain an Olympic title in which event?
100 metres
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.
Q 11Tennessee State long jumper Ralph Boston broke a 25-year-old world record in 1960 that had belonged to which athlete?
Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens had held the long jump record since 1935. Boston followed up with Olympic gold weeks later, winning by a single centimetre.
Q 12Which coach led the Tennessee State Tigerbelles for 44 years and twice headed the US Olympic women's track team?
Ed Temple
Ed Temple sent 40 Tigerbelles to the Olympics, and a statue of him now stands beside Nashville's minor league ballpark.
Q 13Tennessee State's Joe Gilliam was the first Black quarterback to start a post-merger NFL season opener for which team?
Pittsburgh Steelers
Q 21Carla Thomas, a hit-maker during her first year at Tennessee State, later cut a duets album with which soul singer?
Otis Redding
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.
Q 22Four Tennessee State Tigerbelles made up the entire US women's relay team that won 1960 Olympic gold in which city?
Rome
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.
Q 23Aristocat the Tiger is the mascot of Tennessee State, whose teams compete in which pair of school colours?
Blue and white
The Pittsburgh Steelers started Gilliam ahead of Terry Bradshaw in 1974, but he was benched after six games and Bradshaw reclaimed the job.
Q 14Tennessee State's downtown campus honours lawyer Avon Williams, a first cousin of which Supreme Court justice?
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall's cousin won the long court fight that merged the University of Tennessee's Nashville branch into Tennessee State in 1979.
Q 15Fourteen Tennessee State students were expelled in 1961 for taking part in which civil rights campaign?
The Freedom Rides
The Freedom Rides cost the 14 students their places under pressure from the state, and the university awarded them honorary doctorates in 2008.
Q 16Tennessee State graduate Xernona Clayton, who once persuaded a Klan leader to quit, organised events for which leader?
Martin Luther King
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.
Q 17In 1961 Tennessee State's Aristocrat of Bands became the first HBCU band to perform at which president's inauguration?
John F. Kennedy
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.
Q 18Saxophonist Hank Crawford, who studied music at Tennessee State, became musical director for which soul and R&B star?
Ray Charles
Ray Charles relied on Crawford as musical director before the saxophonist, a veteran of Tennessee State's Jazz Collegians, launched a solo career.
Q 19Jimmy Blanton took up the double bass at Tennessee State before joining which bandleader's orchestra in 1939?
Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington offered Blanton the job the night they met, and the young bassist went on to pioneer the jazz bass solo.
Q 20Tennessee State alumni Dick Barnett and Anthony Mason both played in the NBA Finals for which team?
New York Knicks
The New York Knicks won two championships with Barnett, famous for his kicked-back jump shot, and reached the 1994 Finals with Mason.
Blue and white also name the Blue-White game, the scrimmage that closes the Tigers' spring football practice each year.
Q 24Which politician told graduates she was now a Tiger after giving Tennessee State's commencement address in May 2022?
Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris was vice president at the time, and the university hooded her with an honorary doctorate at the same ceremony.
Q 25For three decades TSU's Tigers played the Southern Heritage Classic in Memphis against which rival from Mississippi?
Jackson State
Jackson State and the Tigers are each about 200 miles from Memphis, and their yearly meeting drew crowds of around 50,000.
Q 26Glenda Glover, Tennessee State's first female president, was also international president of which sorority from 2018?
Alpha Kappa Alpha
Alpha Kappa Alpha chose Glover as its leader 47 years after she joined as a Tennessee State student, when she ran the campus chapter.
Q 27Tennessee State biology graduate Levi Watkins helped perform the first human implant of which heart device in 1980?
Automatic defibrillator
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.
Q 28Tennessee State engineer Jesse Russell, hired straight from campus by Bell Labs, pioneered which technology?
Digital cellular networks
Digital cellular networks grew out of his 1980s work at Bell Labs, including a base station design he patented in 1992.
Q 29Until 1968 Tennessee State was known as Tennessee A&I; what did the letters A and I stand for?
Agricultural and Industrial
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.
Q 30Which Tennessee State defensive end was NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1968 and entered the Hall of Fame in 2014?
Claude Humphrey
Claude Humphrey was drafted third overall by Atlanta and started every game as a rookie, having left campus with a school record 39 sacks.