Albany, Georgia · Founded 1903 · Golden Rams
“The 'unsinkable and indestructible' HBCU on the Flint River — built by a founder's $2,600 gift, tested in the Albany Movement, home of the Marching Rams Show Band.”
Official ASU video launching Homecoming 2026 — crowns the 84th Miss ASU and 14th Mister ASU under the theme 'ASU Unleashed: The Power of the Ram.'
40-minute 5th-quarter band battle between the Marching Rams and Tuskegee's Marching Crimson Pipers at 2025 homecoming, in 4K.
4K halftime show footage from September 26, 2026 — the band in its rebuilt, full-size era under Dr. Brooks.
Halftime show at the August 29, 2026 opener against FAMU, recorded in 4K.
The Marching Rams' full performance at the 2026 Music Through the Streets Battle of the Bands, on the road to the historic Thanksgiving Parade invitation.
The Rams' halftime show at the 2009 Fountain City Classic against Fort Valley State.
Halftime performance at the September 22, 2013 Fountain City Battle of the Bands in Columbus, Georgia, from the Honda-era run.
The Rams playing Luniz's 'I Got 5 On It' in the stands at the 2011 Music City Classic against Savannah State — a slice of early-2010s MRSB sound.
The 5th-quarter send-off at Tuskegee in 2010 — evidence the ASU–Tuskegee band rivalry goes back well over a decade.
The Rams at the 2012 Fountain City Classic — the Golden Passionettes era in full swing.
The other side of the rivalry: FVSU's Blue Machine trading blows with the Rams in the Fountain City Classic fifth quarter.
Three-way 2026 fifth-quarter battle featuring the Rams alongside Wilberforce and Central State — the band holding its own in a crowded field.
Class of 1949 — the first African-American woman to win an Olympic gold medal, and the only American woman to take gold at the 1948 London Games (high jump).
Singer, composer, scholar, and activist who left ASU for the SNCC, founded the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, curated at the Smithsonian, and received an honorary doctorate from ASU in 2011.
Class of 1905 — U.S. Representative from Illinois (1943–1970) and the first African American to chair a congressional committee; helped shape civil rights legislation.
Class of 1970 — civil rights advocate and former Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Former NFL safety drafted in the 9th round of the 1990 NFL Draft; won Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII with the Dallas Cowboys and also played for Tampa Bay.
Former NFL and CFL running back who earned All-SIAC honors as a leading rusher for the Golden Rams.
Former professional football player who became a Golden Rams head coach.
Former professional football player and former head football coach at Albany State.
NFL defensive tackle with the Indianapolis Colts, the most prominent recent Golden Ram in the league.
Former professional basketball player — one of four Jones brothers (Caldwell, Charles, Major, Wil) who played professionally after Albany State.
Former professional basketball player from the school's remarkable Jones-brothers pipeline.
The rapper played Golden Rams football in the mid-1990s before his music career.
Actress best known as Harriette Winslow on 'Family Matters'.
Class of 1998 — leading scholar on racial equity in higher education; founder of the USC Race and Equity Center.
Class of 1968 — the first African American Director of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Class of 1974 — the first African American vice president of Nissan North America.
The fifth African American woman to serve in the FBI.
Twelfth president of Miles College.
Class of 2002 — 30th president and CEO of Edward Waters University; previously general counsel at Tuskegee.
Five-time world bench press champion in the International Powerlifting Federation; offensive lineman on the 1985 SIAC championship football team.
Joseph Winthrop Holley, born to formerly enslaved people in Winnsboro, South Carolina and educated at Phillips Academy and Lincoln University, founded the Albany Bible and Manual Training Institute in 1903. He had come south after reading W. E. B. DuBois's descriptions of Black life in Georgia and a meeting with Booker T. Washington that encouraged the plan. With a $2,600 gift from Anna Hazard and her daughter Caroline, the sister and niece of his benefactor Rowland Hazard, Holley bought fifty acres near the banks of the Flint River and organized a board of trustees within a year. The school opened to give southwest Georgia's Black youth elementary education, industrial training, and teacher preparation, patterned on Washington's Tuskegee model.
After a successful first decade under private and religious support, the state of Georgia began funding the institute in 1917 and installed a board of trustees, renaming it the Georgia Normal and Agricultural College. It became a state-supported, two-year college whose primary purpose was training elementary teachers, with a limited program in agriculture alongside industrial education. That same year it began awarding two-year post-secondary degrees. The shift put the school on public footing and aimed its mission squarely at producing Black teachers for the region's segregated schools.
The college joined the newly established University System of Georgia in 1932, coming under the jurisdiction of the state Board of Regents. The affiliation standardized its curriculum and funding inside the statewide system while keeping its historically Black mission. It was a bureaucratic milestone with real consequences: the school's future growth would be decided inside state higher-education politics from then on.
In 1943 the school won four-year status, was renamed Albany State College, and awarded its first baccalaureate degrees — in elementary education and home economics. The transition ended the founder era: Dr. Holley retired the same year and Dr. Aaron Brown became the second president. Overnight the mission expanded from a teachers' and agricultural college into a degree-granting institution, and enrollment and ambition began climbing toward the university the school would later become.
Six years after winning four-year status, the college broadened its program beyond teacher training and home economics, adding majors in the humanities and social studies. The change signaled that Albany State College intended to be a full liberal-arts institution, not just a training ground for educators. It also widened the pipeline of students who would later lead the region's civil rights struggles.
Beginning in 1954 the college developed secondary-level teacher preparation programs across science, health and physical education, business, music, mathematics, and the natural sciences. Music entered the degree programs that year — the academic seedbed for a marching band tradition that would become one of the school's signatures. The decade also saw the college sharpening its identity as southwest Georgia's public HBCU.
The college was authorized in 1961 to offer a four-year degree in nursing, adding health care to its tradition of service to the region. That same fall, Albany State students joined Martin Luther King Jr., the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and local Black organizations in eight months of protest — the Albany Movement. On November 22, 1961, students Blanton Hall and Bertha Gober were arrested for entering the white waiting room of Albany's bus station, becoming the first of more than 1,000 Black protesters jailed. President William Dennis, fearing for his job, suspended and then expelled students who protested — a decision that drew sharp criticism from the student body and Albany's Black community.
The 1961–62 protests ended with some 40 Albany State students expelled from the college for their civil rights activity — a punishment that became one of the most painful episodes in the school's history. Expelled student Bertha Gober carried on as one of the SNCC's Freedom Singers and wrote the group's anthem. Another student, Bernice Johnson Reagon, left school to work full-time with SNCC and later founded the renowned a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock. The expulsions would hang over the school for half a century before any official reckoning.
In fall 1972 the college added its first graduate program, a cooperative effort with Georgia State University offering master's degrees in business education, mathematics education, elementary education, English education, health and physical education, music education, and science education. A master's in business administration, delivered through Valdosta State College, followed in spring 1975. Graduate study had arrived at Albany State, even if the school was not yet delivering the degrees on its own.
Albany State's men's and women's swimming and diving teams were named National Black College Swimming and Diving Champions in 1979, and the school repeated the feat in 1980. The titles are a reminder that the Golden Rams' athletic legacy extends well beyond football — the school has fielded nationally honored programs in the pool too.
In September 1981 the college began offering graduate programs designed and delivered solely by its own faculty and staff — master's degrees in business administration and education, with criminal justice, nursing, and public administration added later. The decade also brought a more credentialed faculty, with the share of professors holding doctorates rising by more than fifty percent in the 1970s. Albany State was growing from a teaching college into a graduate institution.
Devastating floods of the Flint River in 1994, and again in 1998, battered the Albany campus with some of the worst flood damage in Georgia history. President Portia Holmes Shields answered with a major renovation program: new buildings and state-of-the-art technology replaced what the water had destroyed. The floods remain the defining physical crisis of the modern university — and the rebuild reshaped the campus map for a generation.
In July 1996 the Board of Regents granted university status and the name changed to Albany State University, recognizing the school's autonomous graduate programs. Dr. Portia Holmes Shields became president the same year — the first woman to lead the institution — and steered both the flood recovery and the school's growth into a comprehensive university. The dual milestone capped the growth arc that had run from 1943 to 1996.
The university marked its 100th year in 2003 with Titus Brown's centennial history of the school. The football team gave the centennial a trophy to go with it: the Golden Rams beat Fayetteville State 52–30 in the Pioneer Bowl, finishing 1–1 all-time in bowl games. A century in, Albany State had a national-title football program, a graduate school, and a band about to hit the Honda stage.
The Golden Rams were named the 2010 SBN Black college Football National Champions, the crowning honor for a program that has won 23 conference championships and sits above .500 all-time at 443–311–22. The title put Albany State in the small company of HBCU programs with a consensus national crown. It also locked in the school's football reputation heading into the consolidation era.
Fifty years after the Albany Movement expulsions, Albany State awarded honorary degrees to 32 of the students expelled for protesting — thirty-one honorary baccalaureates and one honorary doctorate, the latter to Bernice Johnson Reagon, who was also the commencement speaker on December 10, 2011. The ceremony was the school's long-delayed apology for punishing its own students for joining the movement. For many recipients in their seventies, it was the graduation day they had been denied.
President Everette J. Freeman, who had led the university since 2005, departed for the presidency of the Community College of Denver, taking office there November 1, 2013. Dr. Kimberly Ballard-Washington served as interim president from November 1 to December 1, 2013, before Dr. Arthur N. Dunning assumed the interim role on December 2. The year began a leadership stretch that would carry the school through its most consequential decision: merging with Darton State College.
On November 10, 2015, the Board of Regents approved Chancellor Hank Huckaby's proposal to consolidate Albany State University with nearby Darton State College — the fourth round of system consolidations — and named interim president Art Dunning as permanent president of the combined institution. The merger answered enrollment declines at both schools (Albany State down 25 percent since 2011, Darton down 14 percent since 2012) and promised a comprehensive university of nearly 9,000 students with a $108 million budget and about 70 degree programs. The combined school would keep the Albany State name and HBCU mission.
The consolidation became official in January 2017. The former Darton State College campus became Albany State's West Campus — home to the new Darton College of Health Professions — and the consolidated university became the largest HBCU in Georgia and one of the 15 largest in the nation. The merger was not painless: combined fall enrollments of roughly 10,455 in 2013 had fallen to 6,615 by fall 2017, a 27 percent decline. But the new ASU held the East (main) and West campuses in Albany with a unified brand and mission.
Marion Ross Fedrick, who had served as interim executive vice president and then interim president from January 2018, was named the university's 10th president on August 14, 2018. A three-time University of Georgia graduate and former University System vice chancellor for human resources, she came from a corporate and HR background rather than the faculty ladder. She would lead the school for six years, presiding over the 'Unsinkable and Indestructible ASU' era through COVID and the nursing facility build-out.
Trailing Fort Valley State 7–0 in the Fountain City Classic, coach Quinn Gray benched quarterback Dionte Bonneau after three interceptions and turned to sophomore Jhaydon Sullivan, who rushed for two fourth-quarter touchdowns — the second an 11-yard flip into the end zone — to beat the Wildcats 13–7 and clinch a berth in the SIAC championship game. The comeback is one of the most replayed recent chapters in the rivalry. Albany State went on to fall to Benedict 47–10 in the title game, giving the Tigers back-to-back SIAC crowns.
President Marion Ross Fedrick stepped down in 2024 to become executive vice president and chief of staff to the president of Georgia State University, effective July 1. Dr. Lawrence M. Drake II, the former Bethune-Cookman interim president at the center of the 2023 Ed Reed controversy, became interim president the same day — a choice that drew a 550-signature alumni petition asking the Board of Regents not to consider him for the permanent job. Meanwhile the campus kept building: the 16,338-square-foot Nursing and Health Sciences Simulation Center held its ribbon-cutting, the $8.8 million honors residence hall and the Portia Holmes-Shields Early Learning Center broke ground, the Coliseum got a $1.8 million turf renovation, and long-vacant Wiley, Gibson, and Simmons Halls were scheduled for demolition.
In March 2025 the Board of Regents named business executive Robert Scott — president of research and development at The Kraft Heinz Co., and a former biology professor at Norfolk State and associate dean at Boston College and Spelman — as Albany State's next president. On the field, coach Quinn Gray's Golden Rams avenged themselves on Benedict, beating the Tigers 31–3 in Columbia and then 22–16 in the SIAC championship game at the Albany State Coliseum on November 15, punching a ticket to the NCAA Division II playoffs. Earlier that fall the Rams had routed archrival Fort Valley State 48–3 in the 35th Fountain City Classic. The Atlanta Braves and Truist also announced new funding for ASU baseball and softball alongside five other HBCUs.
The Marching Rams Show Band made history in November 2026 as the first HBCU band ever invited to America's Thanksgiving Parade, performing in Detroit for the parade's 100th anniversary under Detroit native Dr. William Brooks — a full-circle return to the streets where he marched as a schoolboy. Back home, Homecoming 2026 ('ASU Unleashed: The Power of the Ram') crowned the 84th Miss Albany State University, Jashalyn Grier, and the 14th Mister Albany State University, Isaiah Jones, at the 'Crowned' coronation on October 4. That August the band also reportedly named its first-ever female head drum major, and in January the university rolled out major campus technology upgrades under CIO Dave Killingsworth.
The oldest and fiercest rivalry — 'the ultimate clash of rivals.' The series opened in 1945 and, as of November 2019, Albany State led 35-33-3. The game is played in Columbus, Georgia at A.J. McClung Memorial Stadium every November and routinely decides SIAC fortunes: Albany State's 13–7 comeback win in the 2023 Classic clinched a championship-game berth, and the 48–3 rout in the 35th Classic (November 2025) sent the Rams to the title they won. The 36th Fountain City Classic was set for November 7, 2026. The bands battle in the fifth quarter too, with Savannah State, FVSU, and ASU all featured on the 2026 band circuit.
The new marquee football rivalry, born in title games. Benedict beat Albany State 47–10 in the 2023 SIAC championship for back-to-back conference crowns. In 2025 the Rams flipped the script entirely: a 31–3 road demolition of the Tigers in Columbia, then a 22–16 win in the championship game at the ASU Coliseum — Albany State's first conference crown under coach Quinn Gray and a ticket to the NCAA Division II playoffs.
The classic is cultural as much as competitive: the 2025 ASU Homecoming fifth quarter between the Marching Rams Show Band and the Tuskegee Marching Crimson Pipers — a 40-minute song-for-song battle captured in 4K — is one of the most-watched band films in Albany State's recent history. The two schools have met in band showcases going back at least to the 2010 'Doing it to Death' fifth quarter at Tuskegee.
🥁 Marching Rams Show Band · since 1944
The Marching Rams Show Band traces its line to 1944 and bills itself as the 'Soul of Southwest Georgia,' known for precision, high-stepping style, and a powerful sound. The band played the Honda Battle of the Bands Invitational Showcase in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, earning a 2019 nomination; its 2016 Rose Bowl Parade trip was backed by the 'Rams in the Roses' campaign. Under Dr. William Brooks the band reportedly named its first-ever female head drum major in 2026 and added the historic Thanksgiving Parade appearance to its resume.
The program's first director of bands, building the band from scratch in the 1940s.
A one-year tenure in the early 1950s.
Led the band through the mid-1950s expansion era.
Guided the program through the turn of the decade and the beginning of the civil-rights era.
A single-year directorship during the Albany Movement years.
A six-year run in the 1960s with a brief return in the mid-70s; later chronicled the band's history as a department chairman.
A one-year tenure bridging the 1960s and 1970s.
A single season at the start of the decade.
The defining director of the modern program — nearly three decades in the chair across two stints — who set many of the band's modern standards.
Held the podium for one year between Smith's stints.
Fifteen years at the helm, including the Honda Battle of the Bands run and the 2016 Rose Bowl Parade appearance.
Led the band through the consolidation years and the COVID-era recovery of the program.
A Detroit native who rebuilt the band from 26 musicians toward a stated goal of 160 while raising its national profile; brought the Rams to the 2026 Music Through the Streets Battle of the Bands and, in November 2026, made them the first HBCU band ever invited to America's Thanksgiving Parade — marching his students down the same Woodward Avenue he marched as a kid.
Albany State's Greek system runs under two councils: the NPHC and the Council of Independent Organizations (CIO). Greek life is woven deep into homecoming, the yard, and the step culture, with BGLO culture running so deep that a 2026 campus story about a professor berating a Delta aspirant made national headlines. With 59+ clubs campus-wide, the yard is a year-round scene.
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After the Flint River floods of 1994 and 1998 devastated the campus, President Portia Holmes Shields launched a major renovation program with new buildings and state-of-the-art technology, replacing what the water had destroyed and redrawing the campus map for a generation.
The former Darton State College's 186-acre urban campus became Albany State University West Campus — home of the Darton College of Health Professions — when the consolidation closed in January 2017, giving the university a second full campus across Albany.
Construction began November 21, 2022 on the 16,338-square-foot, roughly $11.9 million Nursing and Health Sciences Simulation Facility on the West Campus greenspace in front of the I and B buildings — a steel-framed building with simulation labs, low-, medium- and high-fidelity manikins, control rooms, and replicated hospital, clinic, and home-health environments. Funds had been allocated across 2020–2022, and the ribbon-cutting followed in 2024.
The university broke ground October 16, 2024 on the Early Learning Center behind the Jones Brothers HPER Complex on East Campus — named for the first woman president, Dr. Portia Holmes-Shields — to provide safe, affordable childcare for ASU and Albany families, with education majors doing student-teaching on-site and physical and occupational therapy students gaining pediatric experience.
The same day, ASU broke ground across from Hall 6 on East Campus on a 30,682-square-foot, $8.8 million residence hall with 64 beds for junior and senior honors-program students, designed to foster school spirit and lift retention and graduation rates, with completion planned for fall 2025.
The Grant Student Union was upgraded with new flooring and furniture, and both the union and the West Campus Student Center were outfitted with arcade games for students.
The Hampton Smith Athletic Fields received a full Robert Cross Track & Field renovation with a steeplechase addition, a softball field renovation, and the resurfacing and goals installation of the basketball court.
The 10,000-seat Albany State University Coliseum underwent $1.8 million in renovations, including a drainage upgrade and replacing the sod with turf and shock padding for added player protection.
Wiley, Gibson, and Simmons Halls and the former ROTC building — uninhabited for years due to disrepair — were scheduled for demolition, clearing dead space on the East Campus.
In January 2026 the university implemented major campus technology upgrades, described by CIO Dave Killingsworth as strategic investments in cutting-edge learning environments, emergency-resilient systems, and a campus that presents the excellence the community expects.
The executive cabinet under President Scott includes VP and Chief University Growth Officer Troy Beetz, VP for Strategy and University Affairs Dr. Allen P. Vital, VP for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Dr. Jarrod Benjamin, VP and Chief Business Officer Dr. Cornelius Wooten, Chief Legal Affairs Officer Crystal James, and Chief Audit Officer Katherine Kikivarakis. Coaches and band leadership carry outsized influence in campus culture, with the football staff and the band director among the most visible figures on the East Campus.
Business executive (Kraft Heinz R&D president) turned university president, named March 2025.
Leads academic affairs under President Scott.
Leads Golden Rams athletics, including the football program's SIAC title era.
Restored the Golden Rams to SIAC supremacy — 2025 conference champions and NCAA Division II playoff berth; his mantra is 'Moving the Needle.'
Rebuilding the Marching Rams from 26 musicians toward 160; led the historic 2026 Thanksgiving Parade debut.
Directed the January 2026 campus technology upgrade program.
Campus life runs on the rhythms of an HBCU homecoming culture: the Royal Court coronation opens homecoming week, the Marching Rams and Golden Passionettes anchor every game day, and alumni return in force for traditions like the 'Blackprint.' Students themselves describe the school as known for its spirit, its band and football team, and its strong nursing, education, forensic science, and business programs. The yard culture leans blue-and-gold hard — students paint themselves and sport the colors, and the nursing, education, and party scenes draw their own loyal crowds.