The University of Toledo may not be the largest university in the country or the most well-known, but that hasn’t prevented those of fame and fortune from visiting its campus. Famous visitors have made appearances at UToledo across the decades, ranging from entertainers, political figures, sports celebrities and more. Here, we feature seven specially selected individuals we bet you didn’t know stepped foot onto campus.
Danny Thomas (1962)
Danny Thomas was a famous comedian and actor whose career spanned from the 1930s to the 1980s. He was raised in Toledo and attended Woodward High School on Toledo’s north side, but dropped out before he could graduate. Thomas’s career took off in the 1950s, which resulted in a visit to the University of Toledo in 1962 to receive an honorary doctorate in the performing arts. He later returned to Toledo in 1989 to receive another honorary doctorate for his work in founding St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital from the university’s College of Medical and Life Sciences — which was called the Medical College of Ohio prior to its merger with the university in 2006.
Jimi Hendrix (1968)
Back before the Memorial Field House was an academic building, it was a facility used for athletic events and social gatherings. Many famous people visited the University of Toledo, including popular musician Jimi Hendrix. He and his band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, performed at the Memorial Field House on March 30, 1968, one of the first known bands to play at the facility. Other musicians soon followed in his footsteps, performing there until the building became temporarily closed in 1976 due to the opening of the newly constructed Savage Arena.
Gloria Steinem (1970)
Gloria Steinem, a prominent leader of the feminist movement in the 1960s and ’70s, has always had ties to Toledo. Her parents met at the University of Toledo as students, and Steinem herself attended Waite High School in East Toledo. Her most famous visit to the university came on October 6, 1970, when she and Dorothy Pitman spoke about women’s liberation. Steinem later visited the university two more times: once in 1981 for a speaking engagement, and again in 1993, when she received an honorary doctorate from the university.
Nick Saban (1990)
Nick Saban, one of the most successful college football coaches in history, began his head coaching career at the University of Toledo. Though he only coached one football season at the university in 1990, it was a successful one. The Rockets went 9-2 that year and became co-champions of the Mid-American Conference. Despite that success, Saban resigned the following year after receiving a coaching position with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. He later went on to expand his college football coaching success at Michigan State University, Louisiana State University and the University of Alabama.
George W. Bush and Vicente Fox (2001)
Perhaps the highest profile visit to the University of Toledo was by George W. Bush and Vicente Fox, then the current presidents of the United States and Mexico, respectively. President Bush and President Fox visited Toledo on September 6, 2001, the first time in which two sitting presidents had visited the city. The two spoke at the university’s Savage Arena at roughly 3 p.m. that day in front of over 8,000 people, their first stop on their visit to Toledo.
Toni Morrison (2009)
Toni Morrison, the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature, visited the University of Toledo as the result of a grassroots campaign by local area students and university-adjacent organizers. She spoke at Savage Arena on April 24, 2009 as part of the Edward Shapiro Distinguished Lecture Series, named after Dr. Edward Shapiro, a former professor in the University of Toledo’s Department of Economics. Morrison is one of 15 people since 2006 who have spoken at the university as part of this lecture series.