Noah N. Langdale was tenacious in taking Georgia State University from a two-building college to a major university as its president from 1957 through June 1988.

"He set a pattern for Georgia State that continues today," said Marie Dodd of St. Simons Island. Dodd, who served on the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia for 14 years, was a student at Georgia State when Mr. Langdale became president.

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Noah N. Langdale Jr. led Georgia State from 1957 till 1988.

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"I watched him wrestle that school out of the concrete of downtown Atlanta," she said.

Mr. Langdale was single-minded in making Georgia State more than a college of 5,200 students, a budget of $1.9 million, two buildings and one degree — in business. Nothing could deter him from his commitment, not even pressure to run for governor in 1962.

When he retired, the university had more than 22,000 students, 20 buildings and a budget of $118.6 million, and it offered 50 degrees in more than 200 fields.

"I think he felt he owned Georgia State, and he took exception to anyone who didn't agree with that," Dodd said.

Noah Noel Langdale Jr., 87, of Atlanta died of cardiac arrest Saturday at Piedmont Hospital. Memorial service plans will be announced by H.M. Patterson & Son, Spring Hill. The body was cremated.

A one-time University of Alabama football star and Phi Beta Kappa graduate, the Valdosta native earned his law degree and master's in business administration from Harvard University.

He left his law practice in Valdosta, where he also taught at Valdosta State University, to become Georgia State's president. That career move more than doubled his salary from $4,500 to $10,202.

Mr. Langdale was an erudite man who could quote great thinkers from Spinoza to Walter Lippmann, or discuss such concepts as the equity of the universality as glibly as he could quote dialogue from Marx Brothers movies.

"I would get these calls at 11 o'clock at night, and Noah would say, 'Turn on Channel 65. "Room Service" is on,' " said his friend Gene Asher of Atlanta.

The next time they got together, details from that Marx Brothers movie might be part of the trivia they quizzed each other on, he said.

After Mr. Langdale retired, he delighted in cruising Buckhead in Asher's convertible, singing along to college fight songs blasting from the tape deck.

Usually, they were headed to eat at the Varsity.

Mr. Langdale was described in one Atlanta Journal-Constitution article as "a yard-wide, bull-necked, granite block of ex-football tackle."

Yet he had a voice and presence more commanding than his girth.

He was courtly to the point of being solicitous and easily recognized by his shock of silver hair and trademark eyeglasses dangling from a black ribbon around his neck.

He was pleased with Georgia State University's long-standing tradition of open debate and academic freedom, an integrated student body, a collaborative administration and a quality faculty and staff.

Mr. Langdale brought the student body to 22 percent minority and 57 percent women, a mix no other college in the state could match, according to a 1987 AJC article.

At the end of Mr. Langdale's tenure, the school had awarded 125 doctorates and had amassed a library of 1 million volumes — more than the College of William and Mary or Clemson University, to cite two examples.

GSU held bragging rights to a thriving law school and a nationally ranked business school and to being a leader in public urban affairs.

For Mr. Langdale, though, it always came down to people.

"The most important thing," he said in a 1986 AJC article, "is that, over the years, we've been able to educate a great number of people who otherwise would never have been able to go to college."

Survivors include a son, Mike Langdale, of Atlanta.