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Sports

The Amazing Jim Thorpe
By Paul Thielen

World of Sports Never Produced Anyone Equal To Versatile Eagle Star

IF EVER AN ATHLETE deserved the newspaperman's most overworked accolade of "sports immortal," that man was James Francis Thorpe.

Known to his Indian tribesman as Wa-Tho-Huck (Bright River), this great-grandson of Black Hawk, warrior chief of the Sac and Fox nation, has been familiar to sports buffs since the turn of the century as Jim Thorpe, a legend in athletics.

"Sir," King Gustav of Sweden told him in 1912, "you are the most wonderful athlete in the world." Records show that there was more fact than opinion in that royal assertion.

American athletics have developed many men who excelled. Some were good in two or three sports. None, however, has approached the versatility of Jim Thorpe.

The phlegmatic, lackadaisical Indian from Carlisle Institute in Pennsylvania, by way of Bellemont, Okla., is almost universally acclaimed as the best football player of all time. An Associated Press poll of sportswriters and broadcasters paid him that honor in 1950. He was good enough to spend six seasons in baseball's National League, in one of which he batted .327. In track and field he was slightly greater than sensational. He starred not only in a single event, but in four or five.

Ironically, Thorpe's great world-wide honors gained in his record-smashing performance in the 1912 Olympic Games, were snatched away from him within a year, when evidence was uncovered that he had played professional baseball in a minor league for $15 a week. This was a fact that the unsuspecting Thorpe had never tried to hide, but because of it he was forced to return his medals and prizes and his name was removed from the record books.

An effort to have his records reinstated is now underway. The campaign, sponsored by the National Congress of American Indians, has the support of Fraternal Order of Eagles of which he was a member.

THORPE CAME TO CARLISLE in 1904 as a boy of 15, and here he saw a football for the first time. Under the tutelage of Glen Scobie (Pop) Warner he learned a game he had never heard of before.

He became a team member toward the end of the 1907 season, and immediately served notice of the greatness he would reach. The second time he handled the ball in a game he scampered 75 yards for a touchdown against Pennsylvania, one of the powers in Eastern football.

In 1908 he was named to Walter Camp's third all-American team as Carlisle won ten games, lost two, and tied one. The following spring he won five firsts in a track meet against Lafayette when Warner, who also coached that sport, brought a squad of only five men to oppose Lafayette's 46-man team. Carlisle won the meet, 71-31.

Early in the track season that year, Thorpe had been idly watching some high jumpers at practice one afternoon. He decided to give it a try. Wearing overalls and sneakers he easily cleared the bar at five feet, nine inches. A year later, in competition, he jumped six feet, five inches.

At the end of the school term, Thorpe and three of his Carlisle teammates went to Rocky Point, N.C., to play professional baseball. This was a common practice for college athletes in those days, and hundreds played the pro game under assumed names. Thorpe, unaware of the fact that he was violating a rule and destroying his amateur status, made no effort to hide his identity. 

He put in two seasons at Rocky Point, pitching and playing the infield. As a hurler he compiled an astounding 23-2 record one year. He started over 20 games and appeared in relief in a dozen more, but damaged his arm in the process. 

Returning to Carlisle in 1911, the remarkable redskin had sportswriters searching for superlatives to describe his football accomplishments. In a game against Lafayette he averaged 70 yards on punts. When Carlisle defeated mighty Harvard, rated the top team in the East, Thorpe scored all the points in his team's 18-15 victory. he kicked four field goals, one extra point and ran for a touchdown, which was worth only five points then. He was selected on Walter Camp's first All-American team that season.

[image of Thorpe punting a football]
Long past his prime Thorpe coached and played professional football. He performed with the pros at 41.

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