Cote: R.I.P. George Mira Sr., ‘The Matador,’ Hurricanes football’s first true star
This must not get overlooked, or forgotten.
Especially not now, as Miami Hurricanes football is good again, as coach Mario Cristobal’s team prepares to play Dec. 20 at Texas A&M in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
Especially not now, as so many younger Canes fans think UM football history began in the 1980s, when the national championships did. As the distant past becomes the dust-covered photo album lost somewhere in the attic.
George Mira died on Tuesday. He was 83.
You could call him the first big star in Canes football history. You would have an argument. The UM Sports Hall of Fame’s biography calls him ”perhaps the Canes’ greatest player ever.”
If that might be hyperbole, this is not: Mira, the quarterback from 1961 to 1963, was the first player who put Hurricanes football on the national map in a way it had not been before.
Said UM in a statement Tuesday: “The University of Miami football program mourns the passing of legendary quarterback George Mira Sr., who played for the Canes from 1961-63. ‘The Matador’ was a two-time All-American who led the nation in total offense in 1963. He is a member of the Ring of Honor and is one of five UM players to have his jersey retired. We pass along our sincerest condolences to the Mira family.”
There had been notable UM players in the 1950s such as Jim Dooley, Fran Curci and Don Bosseler, but it was the arrival of the Key West-born, Cuban-American Mira, just before Beatlemania arrived, that stirred the imagination in South Florida.
Mira’s elusiveness in the pocket earned him the nickname “The Matador,” given him by then Miami Herald sportswriter Luther Evans. Mira led Miami to the 1961 Liberty Bowl, the program’s first bowl game in 19 years. He is considered the founding member of what came to be called “Quarterback U.” His No. 10 jersey was retired.
Prominent in Mira lore is the time he beat the Florida Gators with a left-handed touchdown pass, when his right arm was pinned against his body by a defender and he improvised. The play would have been all over ESPN “SportsCenter,” if had existed then.
Mira was a two-time All-American. In 1963 he became the first UM football player to adorn the cover of Sports Illustrated’s college preview issue.
Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar, Vinny Testaverde, Gino Torretta and Ken Dorsey to Cam Ward and Carson Beck, all the Canes QB greats followed.
But Mira was first.
He wasn’t Mira Sr. then. Wasn’t needed. George Mira Jr. would come later, and play linebacker for Miami in the 1980s. The elder Mira’s younger brother Joe also was a former Cane of some renown, and later a longtime teacher and high school football coach in Miami-Dade at several schools.
The late Mira played in the NFL from 1964 to 1971 despite barely being 6 feet tall, ending his pro career as Bob Griese’s backup with the Dolphins in 1971.
In his later years, Mira returned to South Florida and quietly operated the Native Conch, a food concession at Fairchild Botanical Gardens in Coral Gables — some customers not even knowing they’d just been handed that conch salad by a local legend.
It was Mira’s exploits at UM, as “The Matador,” that made his name indelible in UM and Miami sports history, and not to be forgotten.
This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 3:30 PM.
