By Lara Kinne–

Reinking inside the archive storage room.

A group of volunteers working in the athletics office of E210 are working to bring remnants of U of L history out of the closet. This growing project aims to archive a collection of old photographs stored inside multitudes of books, binders and folders accumulated by the sports department.

Since December, the books have been archived by no more than four volunteers as they archive basketball and football concurrently. The oldest photos date back to the early 1900s, according to athletics photographer Jeff Reinking, but they’ve still barely grazed this extensive collection. Basketball, football and baseball are all featured in this collection.

There’s more to the archiving process than just categorizing sports. Photographs are digitized and further articulated by names of players, times of tournaments and championship games. Most names and dates are scribed on the back, but sometimes that information is missing and a photo may require additional research.

“In any given era [the players] tend to look the same,” said Michael Gray, an urban planning major and one of the volunteers who is helping organize the collection.

The volunteers will often match faces through team photos and refer back to old player rosters and past media guides. The project is anticipated to grow as they integrate these additional documents and develop a video collection. “Some coaches have individual archives, separate from what the volunteers are archiving, but history major Tad Timberlake says they’re unsure about covering every coach.”.  Needless to say, it’s a long process.

Flipping through these books, you’ll notice a distinguished aesthetic to sports photography of the past unlike the professional practice today. Greyscale contours players’ physical features in deep contrasts of black and white, shaped over chiseled grins in frozen motion. It evokes a sense of mourn for these lush portraits of unknown players.

Johnny Unitas circa early 1950s.

“One thing I love is the old football stuff where they’re not wearing their helmet, faking poses, and it’s all over-lit,” Reinking says while pouring over a binder of photographs. “It’s a genre you never see anymore.”

Timberlake also noted this candid photography style. The most intriguing photos captured players in settings outside the playing field.

“The teams go on expedition games every now and then,” he said. “We found shots of them on the beach. You never see that today.”

The project seems endless as long as there are Cardinal sports, but the outcome is substantial to preserving university history. Once complete, all media will be accessible through a university database for anyone curious to delve into the past.

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Photos: Lara Kinne/The Louisville Cardinal