The year was 1900, the city was Paris and the Olympians from U-M won three silver medals in the city of lights.
Fast forward a century to Sydney, where a contingent of 15 Wolverines competed, including several who won gold and notched Olympic and world records.
These feats, and those from the years in between, are documented on a Web site maintained by Greg Kinney, an associate archivist at the Bentley Historical Library. As U-M athletes and coaches qualify for the 2004 Olympics, Kinney will update the site with their names and results of their competition.
The project began during the 1992 Olympics, when Kinney put together a display about U-M alumni Olympians in the lobby of the library.
“It was well received, so the next time the Olympics came around we expanded it and put it online,” he says. “There are currently 175 U-M alumni, coaches and staff listed on the site, and each Olympiad has a short narrative available.”
The site is part of his job as the archivist for the Department of Athletics. To his knowledge, “U-M is the only athletic department in the country that provides direct support to maintain its archives,” Kinney says. “I get media guides, press releases, programs, photos and administrative records. I try to document all the activities that go on over there.”
It is no small task. The department records take up 110 linear feet of shelf space at Bentley, Kinney says. This includes paper records, photos and publications. In addition, Bentley holds 2,000 reels of film, mostly of football games.
“We have one game film dating back to 1904 that I found at the Library of Congress when I was helping develop the Schembechler Museum,” Kinney says. “I was really surprised. It is one of the earliest surviving films of game action.”
Another of his finds was linking Edgar Eisenhower from the 1912 football team to his brother, President Dwight Eisenhower.
In the course of his work, Kinney gets a chance to talk with athletes from years past. “Football represents some of the fondest memories of the University for many people,” he says. “It was an important part of student life going back to the 1870s.”
One of Kinney’s favorite pieces in the collection is a photo album by Walter Graham, a football player and member of the class of 1908.
“It is a wonderful album of athletic mementos and student life,” he says. “There are football, baseball and track photos, as well as pictures from student plays, fraternity life, formal dances and garden parties.”
It is this glimpse into the past that Kinney enjoys about his job. “Working with old material is fun and interesting,” he says. “I’ve learned more about U-M sports than I ever imagined I would when I came here to graduate school.”
The online Olympic exhibit can be found at http://www.umich.edu/~bhl/bhl/olymp2/oltitle.htm.
