Notable Alumni
Alumni of Grambling State include numerous MLB, NBA and NFL players, public officials, journalists, businessmen and artists. Willie Brown, Green Bay Packers: NFL Hall of Fame Eight-time Mr. Olympia winner Ronnie Coleman is a noted alumnus, as is alumna actress Natalie Desselle-Reid. Grammy-winner Erykah Badu attended Grambling State University and once served as a campus Queen, although she began concentrating on music full-time and dropped out before graduating. New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow is also an alumnus. Alumna Pinkie C. Wilkerson, served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1992 until her death in an automobile accident on August 1, 2000. Former NFL quarterback and Super Bowl XXII MVP Doug Williams, is not only an alumnus, but currently serves as the Tigers head football coach. West coast bay area rap artist E-40 also attended Grambling State University. Alumnus Ahmad Terry, former Rocky Mountain News Staff photographer and Pulitzer Prize winner 2000 and 2003. *Pulitzer Prize Grambling State University graduate, Stephanie Finleyhad, was nominated as U.S. Attorney for Louisiana's Western District by President Barack Obama. Award winning and world renowned jazz artist Michael Thomas is a Grambling alumnus and was a member of the Tiger Marching Band along with jazz artists Lovett Hines and Bob French. The writer Judi-Ann Mason was a double major graduate of Grambling. She began her writing career at GSU by winning two major playwrighting awards through the American College Theatre Festival. As a sophomore, her first full-length play, "Livin' Fat" won the Norman Lear award. In her senior year, her script "A Star Aint Nothin But a Hole in Heaven" won the first Lorraine Hansberry Award. As part of the prize, she worked for several years with the Lear organization writing for the TV sitcom, "Good Times." She later was named the head writer for the black soap opera "Generations," and went on to write the screenplay for the film, Sister Act II. Mason died in 2009 at the age of 54. In the classic, 1975 black film Cooley High, main character Richard "Cochise" Morris (played by actor Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs), is tragically murdered after being notified that he'd been awarded a basketball scholarship to Grambling. N. Burl Cain, warden of Louisiana State Penitentiary, has a master's degree in criminal justice from Grambling.
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“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
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