University of Memphis
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40 free University of Memphis trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The University of Memphis has changed its name more than once since it opened in 1912, and it has collected stories the whole way. For decades a live tiger rode to football games under police escort, a future NBA most valuable player passed through for a single season, and a rock giant's first American tour stopped at the campus field house. This quiz gathers the fun facts people trade about the school: how it started and why it landed where it did, the buildings and museums on its campuses, the traditions around the Tigers, and the actors, musicians and athletes who studied there. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so each question doubles as a fact worth repeating. It suits students, alumni, Memphis sports fans and anyone planning a campus trivia night. The questions run from easy openers to a few deep cuts for lifelong Tigers fans.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Like the University of Memphis for nearly five decades, which of these universities keeps a live tiger as its mascot?
LSU
LSU keeps a live tiger named Mike, while Memphis had three, each called TOM. Memphis's tiger rode to home football games in a climate-controlled trailer with a police escort.
Q 02Which UCLA center made 21 of his 22 shots to beat Memphis State in the 1973 NCAA basketball final?
Bill Walton
Bill Walton scored a championship-game record 44 points in the 87–66 win. Memphis State was playing in the national title game for the first time, having beaten Providence in the semifinal.
Q 03Which team beat Memphis in overtime in the 2008 NCAA final after tying the game with 2.1 seconds left?
Kansas
Kansas forced overtime on Mario Chalmers's late shot and won 75–68. Memphis had been the first team with 38 wins in a season, but the NCAA later vacated all of them.
Q 04Which future NBA MVP played one season at Memphis before the Chicago Bulls drafted him first overall?
Derrick Rose
Derrick Rose grew up in Chicago, so the Bulls were his hometown team. He was only 22 when he was named the league's Most Valuable Player in 2011.
Q 05The Pyramid, home of Memphis Tigers basketball from 1991 to 2004, reopened in 2015 as which retailer's megastore?
Bass Pro Shops
Bass Pro Shops filled the 321-foot arena with a hotel, restaurants, a bowling alley and an archery range. In its basketball days, fans called the building the Tomb of Doom.
Q 06Which ancient civilization's antiquities fill a permanent gallery at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis?
Egypt
Egypt is also where the city of Memphis got its name. The museum's collection began with 44 objects bought from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts in 1975.
Q 07The University of Memphis opened in 1912 as a 'normal school', a college that trained students for which profession?
Teaching
Teaching was the whole purpose of West Tennessee State Normal School, the university's first name. 'Normal' referred to the norms, or standards, of classroom practice.
Q 08Memphis and UAB football teams play for a 100-pound bronze trophy shaped like which barbecue favorite?
A rack of ribs
A rack of ribs honors both cities' reputations for barbecue, and a fan cook-off accompanies the game. The series is known as the Battle for the Bones.
Q 09In which 1994 film did Memphis State star Penny Hardaway play a college basketball recruit alongside Shaquille O'Neal?
Blue Chips
Blue Chips cast Hardaway and O'Neal as freshmen at a fictional university. They filmed it before Hardaway was drafted, then became real teammates with the Orlando Magic.
Q 10Which Memphis-headquartered company gives its name to the University of Memphis's Institute of Technology?
FedEx
FedEx sorts its overnight packages at a giant Memphis hub. The institute carrying its name researches supply chains, nanotechnology, robotics and intelligent systems.
Q 11Which University of Memphis school moved downtown in 2010 into a former federal customs house and post office?
Law
Law students now study next to the downtown courts, in a building older than the university itself. Its first section went up in 1885, 27 years before the college opened.
Q 12The University of Memphis hospitality school is named for Kemmons Wilson, founder of which hotel chain?
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn opened its first motel in Memphis in 1952. Wilson came up with the idea after a family road trip left him disappointed by roadside hotels.
Q 13Which future NFL star quarterbacked the Tennessee team that Memphis beat for the first time ever in 1996?
Peyton Manning
Q 21Memphis State star Anfernee Hardaway got the nickname Penny from which relative's drawled way of saying 'Pretty'?
His grandmother
His grandmother called him Pretty in a Southern drawl that came out sounding like Penny. He later wore No. 1 in the NBA partly because a penny is worth one cent.
Q 22Benjamin Hooks, who co-founded a University of Memphis institute, led which organization from 1977 to 1992?
NAACP
NAACP executive director for 15 years, Hooks was also a Baptist minister and a practicing attorney. He set up the Memphis institute with political science faculty in 1996.
Q 23Where did TOM I, the University of Memphis's first live tiger mascot, spend his first few months in the city?
A booster's garage
Peyton Manning threw for 296 yards that day and still lost. Memphis had never before beaten its in-state rival.
Q 14The Memphis Tigers football team shares its home stadium with which annual college postseason game?
Liberty Bowl
The Liberty Bowl began in Philadelphia and spent one year in Atlantic City before settling in Memphis in 1965, the year the stadium opened.
Q 15The Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis State's basketball home until 1991, hosted which band's final American tour in 1966?
The Beatles
The Beatles played two shows there on August 19, 1966, even though the city council had called for them to be cancelled. The arena was among the tour's few stops.
Q 16Which natural hazard is the focus of CERI, a University of Memphis research center with its own monitoring network?
Earthquakes
Earthquakes are a real risk in Memphis, which lies near the New Madrid seismic zone. CERI runs a large network of seismic stations and teaches the public about the danger.
Q 17What milestone did the group known as the Memphis State Eight mark by enrolling in 1959?
First Black students
First Black students at the school, the eight were told to leave campus right after class and to avoid the cafeteria. The rules were dropped as more Black students enrolled.
Q 18What did the University of Memphis Alumni Association place around campus and the city for the 2012 centennial?
Tiger statues
Tiger statues, each one life-sized, went up in two groups of fifty: one on campus and the other spread around the Memphis area.
Q 19Which Memphis State graduate became a U.S. senator after acting in The Hunt for Red October and Die Hard 2?
Fred Thompson
Fred Thompson later spent five years playing a Manhattan district attorney on NBC. He first made his name as a counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee.
Q 20Which coach led Memphis to the 2008 NCAA basketball title game and left for Kentucky the following year?
John Calipari
John Calipari popularized the dribble drive motion offense at Memphis, a scheme sometimes known as the Memphis Attack. His teams reached the Elite Eight three years running.
A booster's garage housed the cub, bought for $1,500 in 1972, until he moved to the zoo. He grew to more than 600 pounds and served for nearly 20 years.
Q 24Which feature of the proposed Memphis campus site helped the city win West Tennessee's new state college over a rival?
A nearby rail line
A nearby rail line meant professors and students could travel home to visit relatives. A railroad still cuts through the campus, crossed since 2019 by a pedestrian bridge.
Q 25Which Tennessee city hosts the University of Memphis's Lambuth Campus, about 80 miles east of the main campus?
Jackson
Jackson had bid against Memphis to host the original college, so the university arrived a century late. Its Lambuth Campus was a Methodist university that closed in 2011.
Q 26Which New Deal agency's workers found Chucalissa, the prehistoric village the University of Memphis runs as a museum?
Civilian Conservation Corps
Civilian Conservation Corps crews turned up artifacts there in 1938. The village, lived in on and off from about 1000 to 1550, is now a National Historic Landmark.
Q 27Which name belongs to the University of Memphis marching band, which doubles as a basketball pep band?
Mighty Sound of the South
Mighty Sound of the South is one of the oldest institutions at the university and performs more than any other student ensemble on campus.
Q 28The University of Memphis library is named for Ned McWherter, who held which state office from 1987 to 1995?
Governor
Governor McWherter funded the library's construction. As a young man he had tried to play football at the school, but a knee injury ended the attempt before the season began.
Q 29Which former Drive-By Truckers songwriter was awarded his University of Memphis English degree in 2023?
Jason Isbell
Jason Isbell had studied English and creative writing at Memphis years earlier. In 2023 the university weighed his career experience and awarded him the bachelor's degree.
Q 30Which former Memphis receiver caught the game-winning 73-yard touchdown for the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV?
Isaac Bruce
Isaac Bruce was the leading receiver of the Rams offense nicknamed the Greatest Show on Turf. He entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2020.