Notable Alumni of Murray State University
Murray State University, located in Murray, Kentucky, has a rich history of producing successful individuals across various fields. This article highlights some of the university's most notable alumni, recognized for their achievements in sports, entertainment, politics, and academia. According to EduRank, Murray State University is ranked 1172nd in the world, 420th in North America, and 393rd in the United States based on the aggregated prominence of its alumni. This list showcases 51 notable alumni from Murray State University, sorted by the popularity of their Wikipedia pages.
Athletics
Murray State University boasts a strong athletic tradition, and many of its alumni have achieved prominence in professional sports.
Ja Morant: Temetrius Jamel "Ja" Morant is an American professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Murray State Racers, where he was a consensus first-team All-American as a sophomore in 2019.
Cameron Payne: Cameron Payne is an American professional basketball player for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for Murray State and was selected 14th overall by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2015 NBA draft. After playing two seasons for the Thunder, he was traded to the Chicago Bulls in 2017, where he played for three seasons before being waived in 2019.
Isaiah Canaan: Isaiah Canaan is an American professional basketball player who plays for Crvena zvezda of the ABA League and the EuroLeague. He was an All-American college player at Murray State University.
Read also: Scholarship Guide
Joe Fulks: Joseph Franklin "Jumping Joe" Fulks was an American professional basketball player. The NBA's first scoring champion, he was sometimes called "the first of the high-scoring forwards". He was posthumously enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978.
Marcus Brown: Marcus James Brown is an American former professional basketball player. At 6'3" (1.91 m) tall, he played as a shooting guard. Brown ended his career as a player-coach with Žalgiris Kaunas in 2011. Brown was the EuroLeague's career scoring leader since the year 2000, when he ended his career in October 2011. As far as United States players only are concerned, Brown remains one of league's higher scoring players in the competition since the year 2000, when the league's current organizer (EuroLeague Basketball) took over the competition.
James Singleton: James Alexander Singleton is an American former professional basketball player and former assistant coach of the Austin Spurs of the NBA G League. The 6'8" forward played two years of college basketball for Murray State.
Kirk Rueter: Kirk Wesley Rueter, nicknamed "Woody", is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 13 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily for the San Francisco Giants. He also played for the Montreal Expos who had drafted him in 1991.
Wesley Korir: Wesley Kipchumba Korir is a Kenyan athlete who specializes in long distance running competitions, as well as a politician who served as an elected member of Parliament for Cherangany Constituency. On 16 April 2012, he won the Boston Marathon with a time of 2 hours 12 minutes 40 seconds. He had previously won the Los Angeles Marathon in 2009 and 2010, the first back-to-back winner there in eight years. He took second place in the 2011 Chicago Marathon in a personal-record time of 2 hours 6 minutes 15 seconds, and improved that personal record by 2 seconds in the 2012 Chicago Marathon.
Ed Daniel: Edward Daniel is an American professional basketball player for Scafati Basket of the Serie A2 Basket. He played college basketball at Murray State University.
Erik McCree: Erik McCree is an American professional basketball player for Al Nassr of the Saudi Basketball League. He played college basketball for Murray State and Louisiana Tech.
Tripp Gibson: Hal Harrison Gibson III, known as Tripp Gibson, is an American Major League Baseball umpire who wears uniform number 73. Gibson's first Major League game was July 8, 2013, at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. He was promoted to a full-time position in January 2015.
Jarvis Williams: Reigarvius Jacquez "Jarvis" Williams is an American professional basketball player for Hapoel Be'er Sheva of the Israeli Basketball Premier League. Standing at 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m), he plays at the power forward and center positions.
Stew Johnson: Stewart "Stew" Johnson is an American former professional basketball player. A 6'8" (2.03 m) tall forward/center from Murray State University, who was born in New York City, Johnson was selected by the New York Knicks in the third round of the 1966 NBA draft. However, Johnson never played in the NBA, joining the rival American Basketball Association instead.
Read also: Leadership at Notre Dame
Pat Spurgin: Karen Patricia "Pat" Pitney is an American university administrator, former Alaska state government official, and Olympic gold medalist in sport shooting. She is the president of the University of Alaska system.
Mark Riggins: Mark Alan Riggins is an American former professional baseball coach.
Dominique Rhymes: Dominique Rhymes is an American professional football wide receiver for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League (CFL).
Arts and Entertainment
Murray State University has also produced notable figures in the entertainment industry.
Chrishell Stause: Terrina Chrishell Stause is an American actress, television personality, and real estate agent. She began her career playing the role of Amanda Dillon in the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children (2005-2011). From 2013 to 2015 she starred as Jordan Ridgeway in the NBC soap opera, Days of Our Lives and later returned to the soap on a recurring basis. For this role, Stause received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series in 2020. In 2019, Stause began starring in the Netflix reality series Selling Sunset.
Jim Varney: James Albert Varney Jr. was an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his comedic role as Ernest P. Worrell, for which he won an Emmy Award, as well as appearing in films and numerous television commercial advertising campaigns. He played Jed Clampett in a film adaptation of The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) and also voiced Slinky Dog in the first two films of the Toy Story franchise (1995-1999).
W. Earl Brown: William Earl Brown is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, musician, and songwriter. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Kenny, the cameraman in the film Scream (1996), Warren in the film There's Something About Mary (1998), Dan Dority on the HBO series Deadwood (2004-2006), and the voice and motion capture of Bill in the video game The Last of Us (2013). He has appeared in films such as Backdraft, The Master, Being John Malkovich, The Sessions, Vanilla Sky, The Lone Ranger, and Bloodworth (which he also wrote and produced), as well as series such as Seinfeld, NYPD Blue, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, The X-Files, Six Feet Under, Preacher, Bates Motel, True Detective, American Horror Story, Chicago Fire, Psych, and The Mandalorian.
Chris Thile: Christopher Scott Thile is an American mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and radio personality, best known for his work in the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and progressive bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. From 2016 to its cancellation in 2020, he hosted the radio variety show Live from Here.
Joe Staton: Joe Staton is an American comics artist and writer. He co-created the Bronze Age Huntress (Helena Wayne), as well as the third Huntress (Helena Bertinelli), Kilowog and the Omega Men for DC Comics. He was the artist of the Dick Tracy comic strip from 2011 to October 2021.
J. D. Wilkes: Joshua "J. D." Wilkes is an American visual artist, musician, amateur filmmaker and author. He is best known as the singer for the rock band Legendary Shack Shakers, and is also an accomplished harmonica player, having recorded for such artists as Merle Haggard, Sturgill Simpson, John Carter Cash, Mike Patton, and Hank Williams III in the American Masters film "Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues".
Jeff Easley: Jeff Easley is an oil painter who creates fantasy artwork for role-playing games, comics, and magazines, as well as non-fantasy commercial art.
Politics and Public Service
Several Murray State University alumni have made significant contributions to the field of politics and public service.
Larry J. Hopkins: Larry Jones Hopkins was an American businessman and politician who represented Kentucky's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1993. He was the Republican nominee for governor of Kentucky in 1991 and lost to Brereton C. Jones.
Bill Cunningham: William Harold Cunningham is an American former prosecutor and former Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court. He was elected to the court in November 2006 to represent the first Appellate District. He announced he would retire in early 2019.
Steven H. David: Steven H. David is a former justice of the Indiana Supreme Court. David previously served as a lawyer and military officer. He retired from the United States Army Reserve in September 2010 with the rank of colonel.
Brent Yonts: Brent Yonts was an American politician and a Democratic member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from District 15. He took office in 1997 and was defeated for re-election in 2016 by Republican Melinda Gibbons Prunty.
Fats Everett: Robert Ashton "Fats" Everett was an American Democratic Congressman from Tennessee from February 1, 1958, until his death in 1969.
Harry Lee Waterfield: Harry Lee Waterfield, an American Democratic politician, he served as the 42nd and 44th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky and unsuccessfully sought election as Governor of Kentucky.
Steven Rudy: Steven Jack Rudy is an American politician and agribusiness owner who has served as a Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives since January 2005. He represents Kentucky's 1st House district, which includes Ballard, Carlisle, Fulton, and Hickman counties.
Academia and Research
Murray State University has also produced notable figures in academia and research.
Forrest Pogue: Forrest Carlisle Pogue Jr. was an official United States Army historian during World War II. He was a proponent of oral history techniques, and collected many oral histories from the war under the direction of chief Army historian S. L. A. Marshall. Forrest Pogue was for many years the Executive Director of the George C. Marshall Foundation as well as Director of the Marshall Library located on the campus of Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia.
Vicki Ann Funk: Vicki Ann Funk was an American botanist and curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, known for her work on members of the composite family (Asteraceae) including collecting plants in many parts of the world, as well as her synthetic work on phylogenetics and biogeography.
Coaching and Management
Several Murray State University alumni have excelled in coaching and management roles.
Justin Fuente: Justin James Fuente is an American college football coach. He was the head football coach at Virginia Tech from 2016 to 2021. He was the 2016 ACC Coach of the Year. Fuente was the head football coach at the University of Memphis from 2012 to 2015. He was an assistant at Texas Christian University from 2007 to 2011 and previously at Illinois State University from 2001 to 2006. Fuente attended the University of Oklahoma before transferring to Murray State University after his redshirt sophomore season. He played quarterback for both schools. Fuente played a single season with the Oklahoma Wranglers of the Arena Football League.
Bud Foster: Robert Eugene "Bud" Foster Jr. is a retired American college football coach and former player. He currently serves as a Special Assistant to Athletics Director Whit Babcock. Following the 2006 season, he received the Frank Broyles Award, which is annually given to the top assistant coach in college football. Foster's 2005 and 2006 Hokie defenses led the nation in total defense. Foster is regarded as one of the best defensive coordinators in college football. On August 1, 2019, Foster announced he was retiring at the end of the 2019 season.
John Powless: John Dale Powless was an American basketball and tennis player and coach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a player on the international senior tennis circuit.
Other Notable Alumni
Leva Bates: Leva Bates is an American professional wrestler. She is best known for her time with All Elite Wrestling. She also had a successful tenure on the independent circuit, most notably for Shimmer Women Athletes. She has also appeared in WWE on their developmental territory NXT under the ring name Blue Pants.
Lee-Anne Pace: Lee-Anne Pace is a South African professional golfer.
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