This summer’s issue of Miami magazine details the play-by-play course of events that led the University of Miami Hurricanes football team to take to the field against the University of Florida Gators in the wake of the 1963 assassination of President John F. 
Kennedy. To move forward with the scheduled game was “a tribute to Kennedy,” writes Gasper González, in his feature story, Playing for JFK. This poignant piece is well accompanied by images that ground it in its historical context, which set a stage for the reader that is truthful, credible, and, in this way, amplifies the story’s impact.
Special Collections Research Services & Projects Assistant Steve Hersh and University Archivist Koichi Tasa worked with Scott Fricker, UM’s director of creative services, to search, sort, and select fitting materials and publications from the time period referenced in the story. The Archives’ assemblage of UM’s publications, photographs, and memorabilia served the need well, yet it was in Special Collections’ Orange Bowl Committee Archives that some of the more story-specific items were uncovered. Mr. Hersh had to be especially resourceful in his search through these materials to narrow in on the precise time period. The Orange Bowl Committee Archives are quite thorough and thousands of historical items deep, containing scrapbooks, photographs, programs, newspaper clippings, Committee meeting minutes, and many other objects and collectibles.
The UM Libraries have been working closely with University Communications to provide research assistance, high-resolution historical images for publications, as well as the technology and services necessary for the digitization and archiving of UM original materials. Through partnerships such as this, UM’s history, and its niche in the global perspective, are made available and accessible to present and future generations of researchers looking to the past to tell their story.
University of Miami Archives -- Let's Archive It 