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MSU alumni find success

July 13, 2015
<p>Magic Johnson cheers with the crowd Mar. 20, 2015,  during the second round of the NCAA tournament in a game against Georgia at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Spartans defeated the Bulldogs, 70-63. Alice Kole /The State News</p>

Magic Johnson cheers with the crowd Mar. 20, 2015, during the second round of the NCAA tournament in a game against Georgia at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Spartans defeated the Bulldogs, 70-63. Alice Kole /The State News

Michigan State University was founded in 1855 and in 1862 became the nation's first land-grant institution under the Morrill Act of 1962. Today, that same University has expanded to so much more, as there are currently over a half million alumni living around the world. To learn more about just a few of these alumni, take a look below.

Dan Gilbert

Gilbert graduated from MSU in 1982 and has since gone on to a very successful business career. Gilbert is the chairman and founder of Rock Ventures and Quicken Loans Inc.. According to Forbes, Gilbert has a net worth of $4.8 billion. Among his other ventures, Gilbert is also the owner of several Ohio sports franchises, including the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, the American Hockey League's Lake Erie Monsters, the Arena Football League's Cleveland Gladiators and the NBA Development League's Canton Charge.

Debbie Stabenow

Stabenow earned a Bachelor's degree from MSU in 1972 and a Master's degree in 1975. Throughout the last 40 years, Stabenow has since earned her name as a successful politician across the state of Michigan. She's served on the Michigan House of Representatives from 1979-1991, the Michigan Senate from 1991-1994, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1997-2001, representing Michigan's 8th congressional district, and has been a United States Senator representing Michigan since 2001.

Chris Hansen

Hansen graduated from MSU with a degree in journalism in 1981. Since then, he has gone on to work for various TV stations across the country, including WILX in Lansing, WFLA in Tampa, and WXYZ and WDIV in Detroit. He joined NBC News in 1993 and is best known for his work as a television journalist on Dateline NBC, specifically with the "To Catch a Predator" series, where he catches online internet predators with a sting operation.

Jemele Hill

Hill is a 1997 graduate of MSU's School of Journalism. Since then she has gone on to an extensive journalism career. She was a sports reporter for the Detroit Free Press from 1999-2005, a sports columnist from the Orlando Sentinel from 2005-2006, before joining ESPN in 2006, where she has served as a columnist for ESPN.com's page 2, and host of ESPN's First Take and ESPN's His and Hers (formerly Numbers Never Lie).

Morten Andersen

Andersen, who was born in Copenhagen and raised Struer, Denmark, eventually came to America during his adolescence and fell into kicking a football by chance his senior year of high school. Andersen eventually earned a scholarship to MSU and became and All-American kicker in 1981, graduating in 1982. Andersen went on to a 25-year NFL career and is the NFL's all-time leading scorer with 2,544 points.

Sam Raimi

Raimi spent three semesters in the late 1970's at MSU majoring in English before leaving to pursue a career in film, where he's gone on to an extensive career in directing, producing, writing and acting. Raimi's best known work comes from his creation of The Evil Dead series in the 1980s, in addition to directing For Love of the Game in 1999 and the original Spider-man trilogy from 2002-2007.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson

Johnson played basketball for MSU from 1977-1979 and teamed up with fellow Spartan legend Greg Kelser to win the 1979 national championship. Johnson went on to became a five-time NBA Champion with the Los Angeles Lakers and a gold medalist with the Dream Team at the 1992 Olympics. After his basketball career was cut short by HIV, Johnson has become a successful business man, running Magic Johnson Enterprises, a company that has a net worth of about $700 million.

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