40 Fun Facts About University of Memphis

Like the University of Memphis for nearly five decades, which of these universities keeps a live tiger as its mascot?

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.

Which UCLA center made 21 of his 22 shots to beat Memphis State in the 1973 NCAA basketball final?

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.

Which team beat Memphis in overtime in the 2008 NCAA final after tying the game with 2.1 seconds left?

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.

Which future NBA MVP played one season at Memphis before the Chicago Bulls drafted him first overall?

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.

The Pyramid, home of Memphis Tigers basketball from 1991 to 2004, reopened in 2015 as which retailer's megastore?

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.

Which ancient civilization's antiquities fill a permanent gallery at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis?

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.

The University of Memphis opened in 1912 as a 'normal school', a college that trained students for which profession?

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.

Memphis and UAB football teams play for a 100-pound bronze trophy shaped like which barbecue favorite?

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.

In which 1994 film did Memphis State star Penny Hardaway play a college basketball recruit alongside Shaquille O'Neal?

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.

Which Memphis-headquartered company gives its name to the University of Memphis's Institute of Technology?

FedEx sorts its overnight packages at a giant Memphis hub. The institute carrying its name researches supply chains, nanotechnology, robotics and intelligent systems.

Which University of Memphis school moved downtown in 2010 into a former federal customs house and post office?

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.

The University of Memphis hospitality school is named for Kemmons Wilson, founder of which hotel chain?

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.

Which future NFL star quarterbacked the Tennessee team that Memphis beat for the first time ever in 1996?

Peyton Manning threw for 296 yards that day and still lost. Memphis had never before beaten its in-state rival.

The Memphis Tigers football team shares its home stadium with which annual college postseason game?

The Liberty Bowl began in Philadelphia and spent one year in Atlantic City before settling in Memphis in 1965, the year the stadium opened.

The Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis State's basketball home until 1991, hosted which band's final American tour in 1966?

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.

Which natural hazard is the focus of CERI, a University of Memphis research center with its own monitoring network?

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.

What milestone did the group known as the Memphis State Eight mark by enrolling in 1959?

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.

What did the University of Memphis Alumni Association place around campus and the city for the 2012 centennial?

Tiger statues, each one life-sized, went up in two groups of fifty: one on campus and the other spread around the Memphis area.

Which Memphis State graduate became a U.S. senator after acting in The Hunt for Red October and Die Hard 2?

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.

Which coach led Memphis to the 2008 NCAA basketball title game and left for Kentucky the following year?

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.

Memphis State star Anfernee Hardaway got the nickname Penny from which relative's drawled way of saying 'Pretty'?

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.

Benjamin Hooks, who co-founded a University of Memphis institute, led which organization from 1977 to 1992?

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.

Where did TOM I, the University of Memphis's first live tiger mascot, spend his first few months in the city?

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.

Which feature of the proposed Memphis campus site helped the city win West Tennessee's new state college over a rival?

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.

Which Tennessee city hosts the University of Memphis's Lambuth Campus, about 80 miles east of the main campus?

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.

Which New Deal agency's workers found Chucalissa, the prehistoric village the University of Memphis runs as a museum?

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.

Which name belongs to the University of Memphis marching band, which doubles as a basketball pep band?

Mighty Sound of the South is one of the oldest institutions at the university and performs more than any other student ensemble on campus.

The University of Memphis library is named for Ned McWherter, who held which state office from 1987 to 1995?

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.

Which former Drive-By Truckers songwriter was awarded his University of Memphis English degree in 2023?

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.

Which former Memphis receiver caught the game-winning 73-yard touchdown for the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV?

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.

Which Memphis kicker, recruited on a baseball scholarship, replaced Adam Vinatieri with the New England Patriots?

Stephen Gostkowski joined the Memphis football team as a walk-on. His coach there nicknamed him Gotti because he could not pronounce the surname.

Stan Bronson Jr. entered Guinness World Records after more than 50 years in which role with Memphis Tigers baseball?

Batboy from 1958 into the 2010s, Bronson was listed by Guinness as the Most Durable Batboy. The team retired his No. 47 jersey and displayed it on the right field wall.

Which coach did Gene Bartow of Memphis State succeed two years after losing the 1973 NCAA final to him?

John Wooden retired in 1975 and Bartow inherited his dynasty in Los Angeles. Bartow stayed only two seasons before leaving to build a brand-new athletic program at UAB.

Which Memphis State graduate went on to host the television game shows Gambit and Tic-Tac-Dough?

Wink Martindale hosted a Memphis morning radio show while still a student. His friend Elvis Presley appeared on his local teen TV show, Dance Party, in 1956.

Which actress who attended the University of Memphis played Julia Sugarbaker on the sitcom Designing Women?

Dixie Carter made her professional stage debut in a Memphis production of Carousel in 1960. She married her co-star from that show, George Hearn, 17 years later.

Which former Memphis defensive lineman became, in 2015, the heaviest NFL player yet to rush for a touchdown?

Dontari Poe weighed 346 pounds at the NFL Combine and still ran the 40-yard dash in under five seconds. He was drafted 11th overall in 2012.

Which Memphis State guard from the 1973 NCAA finalists returned to become the school's head basketball coach in 1986?

Larry Finch grew up in Memphis and starred at Melrose High School before choosing his hometown team. A statue of him now stands outside the university's basketball center.

Former Memphis forward Michael Wilson earned a Guinness World Record in 2000 for which basketball feat?

Dunking on a 12-foot rim, two feet above regulation height, suited a player with a reported 52-inch vertical leap. Wilson toured with the Harlem Globetrotters as Wild Thing.

What is the costumed tiger mascot of the University of Memphis called, the suited partner of the live tiger TOM?

Pouncer works the sidelines in a tiger suit at Memphis games. With no live tiger at the stadium since TOM III died in 2020, he is the university's official mascot.

The University of Memphis's Park Avenue Campus occupies land that held which kind of facility from 1942 to 1967?

A veterans hospital named Kennedy stood there until the U.S. government donated the land and buildings to the university. Very few of the hospital's buildings remain.