GAME
SPARTAN TRIVIA
Sports
QQ. Which college basketball game received the highest television rating and share in the history of
basketball telecasts?
AA: The MSU vs Indiana State game in the 1979 NCAA Finals in Salt Lake City.
QQ. Is MSU a “football school” or a “basketball school”?
AA: If you go by the records, MSU is a “cross country” school. MSU boasts 8 NCAA team championships, 12
Big Ten championships and 12 IC4A championships in cross country. Those are the most in each category
for any sport.
QQ. Which was MSU’s first undefeated, untied football team?
AA: The 1913 team coached by John F. Macklin, went a perfect 7-0. MSU beat Big Ten giants Michigan and
Wisconsin back to back by the identical scores of 12-7, in Ann Arbor and Madison. The wins may have
helped inspire Francis Irving Lankey to compose the MSU Fight Song in 1915.
QQ. Is it true that Knute Rockne, the legendary Notre Dame football coach, came within a whisker of being
MSU’s head football coach?
AA: Yes. Indeed, in 1917 Knute Rockne, then an assistant coach at Notre Dame, had signed a contract to
become MSU’s head football coach. It was a piece of paper former MSU athletic director Lyman Frimodig
is said to have kept in his desk drawer for many years. The contract called for a salary of $4,500 a year. In
1918, when Fighting Irish head coach Jesse Harper resigned, Notre Dame offered the job to Knute Rockne.
Thus, Rockne never left South Bend for East Lansing.
QQ. How many national football championships has MSU won?
AA: Six—and they all came after 1950.
• MSU was the consensus national champion in football in 1952 and 1965.
• MSU was also selected by at least one poll as national champion in 1951 (Helms, Poling), 1955 (Boand),
1957 (Billingsley, Dunkel, Sagarin) and 1966 (National Football Foundation, Football Research, Helms,
Poling). A claim could also be made for John Macklin’s undefeated 1913 team, which beat Michigan and
Wisconsin at Ann Arbor and Madison. But back in those days, there was no such thing as a national
football championship.
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GAME
Entertainment
QQ. What movie comedy in 1999 involved two scenes on the Michigan State University campus—one
involving a lacrosse game and one involving a choir competition?
AA: American Pie, with Jason Biggs & Sean W. Scott. The movie was co-produced by Warren Zide, a 1988
MSU alum. For the record, the scenes were not actually shot on the campus of MSU, and MSU did not
have a lacrosse team at the time.
QQ. What famous horse once spent two weeks at MSU?
AA: “Silver,” the Lone Ranger’s famous horse. Dr. William Wescott, class of ’43, owner of the Westcott Hospital
in Detroit and former president of the American Animal Hospital Association, was a senior at MSU and
had a job cleaning the stables and doing other chores at MSU’s Veterinary Clinic. For about two weeks,
he cared for Silver, exercising him around campus. He does not remember why Silver came to MSU, but
he has the photos to prove that he did.
QQ. Who starred in The Godfather and played football at MSU?
AA: James Caan, who received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role as Sonny in 1972’s hit movie,
The Godfather, remains one of Hollywood’s best known and most prolific actors. Caan was a walk-on
player in 1956 for coach Duffy Daugherty. In 1997, he served as Grand Marshal of MSU’s Homecoming
Parade. When asked what position he played, he responded, “Tackling dummy.”
QQ. In what famous Oscar-winning Hollywood movie was the soundtrack partly taped in Spartan Stadium?
AA: Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), starring Kirk Douglas as the gladiator who led a slave revolt against
the Roman emperor. The movie won four Oscars and featured some incredibly graphic gladiator scenes.
For the crowd noise for those fight scenes, Kubrick came to MSU in 1959 and had taped the crowd noise
at Spartan Stadium in the MSU-Notre Dame game. The 73,480 fans and students were also directed on
some cheers, like “Hail Spartacus,” that appeared in the movie. For the record, the game was on Oct. 17,
1959, and MSU beat the Fighting Irish 19-0.
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GAME
History
QQ. How and when did Michigan State adopt green and white as its colors?
AA: Records show that in 1899, the Athletic Association of MAC took steps to adopt a green monogram to
be worn by varsity athletes. The colors came into wide use after Chester Brewer became head football
coach and also MSU’s first full-time director of athletics in 1903.
QQ. In what year was our name changed to simply “Michigan State University”?
AA: In 1964. However, in our centennial year of 1955, we officially gained “university” status as Michigan State
University of Agriculture and Applied Science. It was the fourth of five name changes since our founding.
The university was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan. In 1861, the name
was changed to State Agricultural College. In 1909, it became Michigan Agricultural College. In 1925, it
became Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science.
QQ. How did MSU get its current nickname, the Spartans?
AA: Until 1925, Michigan Agricultural College teams were called “Aggies.” When the name changed to
Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science in 1925, a contest to find a new name yielded
“The Michigan Staters,” which was too cumbersome for newspaper headlines. George S. Alderton,
then editor of the Lansing State Journal, perused the discarded entries in the contest and came across
“Spartans.” He began using it in 1926 and the name caught on. It seemed to have the right zing. Pretty
soon everyone started using it, including the student newspaper and sportswriter Dale Stafford of the
Lansing Capitol News. The nickname is said to have been submitted by Perry J. Fremont, a catcher on the
college’s baseball team. Alderton, however, was given the credit for the nickname and eventually became
known as the “Father of the Spartans.” He died in 1993 at age 95.
QQ. When did “MSU Shadows” debut as the university’s alma mater?
AA: “The Shadows” was introduced by the marching band in 1948. It replaced the old alma mater, “Close
Beside the Winding Cedar,” which had been borrowed from Cornell University. Arranged by H. Owen
Reed, chairman of the music department, “Shadows” is based on a tune from the Donizetti opera Lucia di
Lammermoor. The words were written by former Spartan coach Bernard “Barney”Traynor.
QQ. Which was MSU’s first building and what stands there now?
AA: College Hall, built in 1856, was not only MSU’s first building, but also the first building in America designed
for the purpose of teaching scientific agriculture. The building was torn down in 1918. Beaumont Tower,
dedicated in 1929, now stands on its northeast corner.
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GAME
Academics
QQ. What two MSU graduate programs have been ranked No. 1 in the country by U.S. News & World Report
for eight consecutive years?
AA: The elementary and secondary education graduate programs in the College of Education. Altogether, 10
of MSU’s graduate programs are ranked in the Top 10 of their field nationally.
QQ. What was MSU dairy scientist G. Malcolm Trout’s major achievement?
AA: Known as “Mr. Homogenized Milk,” Dr. G. Malcolm Trout is credited for refining the process and making
milk homogenization commercially acceptable and feasible. This author and co-author of over 200
papers, articles and bulletins in dairy technology resulting from studies in milk flavors, homogenization,
and processing, was known around the world for his technical accomplishments. In 1960, Dr. Trout joined
the MSU Dept. of Food Science and Human Nutrition, continuing his focus on dairy foods research. MSU
recognized him as Professor Emeritus in July 1966, after he had touched the lives of more than 3,000
students and established himself as one of the giants of education. He passed away in November 1990,
but continues to be known worldwide as the “father of homogenized milk.”
QQ. What three international universities did MSU help to found?
AA: 1. University of Ryukus, Okinawa, Japan, in 1951.
2. University of Nigeria, 1960.
3. National University of Science & Technology in Pakistan, 1990s.
In addition, MSU made significant contributions in the creation of 19 other colleges, schools or
departments in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Iran,
Malaysia, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam.
QQ. “Plastics” was the magic word in 1967’s The Graduate. What key role did MSU scientists play in the
development of plastics?
AA: MSU plant scientist Chris Somerville and his colleagues discovered how to produce plastics from plants.
Time magazine ranked their work among the top ten stories of 1992.
QQ. Can you name the Spartan whose research led to laser printers, bar code readers, CDs, auto-focus
cameras and fiber-optic communication?
AA: Morton B. Panish, M.S. ‘52, Ph. D. ‘54, senior scientist at Bell Laboratories and member of the National
Academy of Engineering, whose work on hetero-structure lasers with Japanese scientist Izuo
Hagashi, made all those innovations possible. He holds 12 patents and has won a major computer and
communications award from Japan.
QQ. What MSU school is now the largest program in its field in the nation? Clue: The school’s work has
spawned several primetime TV series.
AA: MSU’s School of Criminal Justice. Founded in 1935 as the nation’s first school of police administration,
it is now a world leader in cyber security, forensic science and the study of youth violence.
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