Trove of sports management history donated to UMass Amherst

The archives of Mark H. McCormack — who founded International Management Group in 1960 and who died in 2003 at the age of 72 — will be delivered in installments over the next year to the university’s W.E.B. Du Bois Library. The library will work with the school’s sport management department in the Isenberg School of Management to digitize much of the collection for use by researchers and students worldwide, the school said.

The family wanted to preserve the archives at a school with a sports management program and chose UMass Amherst largely because its faculty is the most experienced in the country, said McCormack’s son, Todd of Newton, the senior corporate vice president at New York-based IMG.

“My father always had a mantra,’’ McCormack said in a telephone interview. “Whenever we were getting into a new sport or a new area, it was always, ‘Who is the best in this business right now?’ ’’

The archives of the elder McCormack, who grew up in Chicago, are currently in thousands of boxes, the school said in a statement. They contain letters to athletes such as Palmer and fellow golf great Jack Nicklaus, sports memorabilia, and IMG corporate papers.

Todd McCormack, 50, said the archives include a two-page handwritten letter that Australian tennis star Rod Laver sent to his father in the 1960s. In the letter, Laver sought representation as his career was just beginning to take off. It recalls an era when athletes did not always expect large endorsement deals and other perks as soon as they turned pro, Todd McCormack said.

“It’s those types of little gems where you get a sense of history and how things have evolved and changed,’’ he said.

The family is also providing a $1.5 million gift to the school for related education initiatives, including a program to bring sports industry executives to campus to mentor students. The endowment will also provide funding for students and faculty to travel abroad for research, the school said, and will support studies at the Center for Spectator Sport Research, located on campus.

Todd McCormack said the archives themselves have a tremendous amount of educational value for students, a contention supported by the biography of his father posted on the school’s website.

The company McCormack founded after reaching a handshake agreement with Palmer went on to sign Nicklaus, Laver, golf and branding icon Tiger Woods, former Red Sox slugger Jim Rice, former NFL running back Herschel Walker, and tennis titans John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, and Monica Seles.

Trans World International, the IMG broadcast division, is the world’s largest independent TV sports production company and rights distributor, according to the biography.

UMass Amherst will honor McCormack’s legacy with its stewardship of the archives, Chancellor Robert C. Holub said in a statement.

“I want to thank the McCormack family for selecting UMass Amherst as the steward of this unparalleled gift, which constitutes the single most significant collection documenting the growth and development of the sport management and marketing industry,’’ Holub said.