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News from [[icon]] Carlisle Jaycees
BOX 126 - CARLISLE, PA.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT Michael Lee Sheaffer PHONE 717 243-1425

Project Jim Thorpe 
Sunday, May 18, 1969  THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL

[[Box 1]]
Time Out for Talk
By OLIVER E. KUECHLE, Associate Sports Editor
Jim Thorpe Finds New Crusading Friends
In the summer of 1912, Jim Thorpe won the decathlon and the pentathlon of the Stockholm Olympic games. As he received his gold medals, Kim Gustav of Sweden told him, "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world." And indeed he was. In the summer of 1950 the Associated Press held a nationwide poll of sportswriters to determine the greatest athlete of the half century. It could only be one man. Jim Thorpe got more votes, 251, than all others combined. They got 141. In 1961 he was posthumously named a charter member [[Image of Thorpe; Caption: Jim Thorpe]] of pro football's Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Thorpe had died in 1953 at the age of 65, a broken, lonely man with only memories and some of them bitter.
 In 1913, the year after his Stockholm triumphs, he was stripped of all of his Olympic medals and his Olympic records. It had been discovered that a few years before he had received money for playing professional baseball with a Rocky Mount (N.C.) team. He made no bones about it. He admitted it. He had played under his own name in innocence not knowing that this would ruin his amateur standing.
 He sent the medals back to the International Olympic Committee which in turn awarded them to the men who had finished second to him, Hugo Weislander of Sweden got the decathlon medal and Ferdinand Bie of Norway the pentathlon medal.
Pressure
All this brought up here because at the moment another attempt is being made to have the medals returned to Thorpe's family, to have his name cleared and to have his records restored. The Carlisle (Pa.) Junior Association of Commerce is leading the fight - Calisle because it was Carlisle Institute, the famous Indian school now abandoned, that Thorpe first broke upon the athletic scene. It is the hope of the Carlisle Jaycees to exert enough public pressure upon the Amateur Athletic Union and the United States Olympic committee to carry the fight to the International Olympic committee. Other attempts thus far have all failed.
 Thorpe's greatness cannot be questioned. In track, foot-
Turn to Kuechle, page 7, col. 3
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[[Box 2]]
Kuechle
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ball, and Indian lacrosse, which is the toughest version of lacrosse, he was a remarkable athlete. In baseball he was probably only a good athlete but he managed to remain in the big leagues non years. In his last season, with the Boston Braves, he hit .327.
 In addition to his decathlon and pentathlon victories at the Stockholm games, he finished fourth in the high jump and seventh in the broad jump. In dual meets he was a one man team, winning as many as five or six events.
 Pro football was particularly his joy. He was 32 years old in 1920 when he first joined the Canton Bulldogs, yet he ran over anybody ho got in his way. In college under Pop Warner at Carlisle, he had been a super star, scoring four field goals and a touchdown in an 18-15 victory over Harvard in 1911 and three field goals and three touchdowns in a 27-7 victory over Army in 1912.
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[[Box 3]]
Innocently Wrong
IN THIS day of professional amateurism, it seems only kind to review his case and possibly relent. The man is dead. So he was technically wrong in accepting money to play with the Rocky Mount team. But he was also innocently wrong, for there were some things this Sac and Fox Indian didn't understand. Carlisle in most of its classes in his day was no more than a grade school.
 How about the Olympic skiers who receive money today for holding their skis with the trademark showing for the television camera? How many have been barred? None. How about the athletes at the Mexico City Olympics who found hundred dollar bills stuffed in their shoes for wearing a certain German make shoe? None.
 The AAU, the United States Olympic committee, the International Olympic committee, all know this happened but they say the can't prove it and therefore they conveniently drop the matter.
 Thorpe was honest. He didn't play under an assumed name. He candidly admitted he had been paid. He was a simple soul, but also the greatest athlete of a half century and certainly the greatest at the Stockholm Olympics. His performances should be officially recognized. 
 There can only be good wishes for the Carlisle Jaycees in what they are attempting to do.
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