Jim Thorpe
On May 22, 1887, one of the greatest athletes
of the 20th century was born in a
small cabin in Oklahoma. James Francis
Thorpe or Wa-tho-huck in his Native
American name which means "bright
future", would have a bright future
indeed. He would go on to make
accomplishments in all of football, baseball and
track and field. In 1907,
his first year at Carlisle Indian School, the young
Thorpe displayed
remarkable skills in football and track and gained the
attention of Pop
Warner, then Carlisle's coach of these sports. Thorpe performed
his amazing
talent on the varsity football team, but in 1909 he withdrew from
the school
and went to North Carolina. There he worked as a farmhand and
played
semiprofessional baseball. Returning to Carlisle in 1911, Thorpe
played halfback
on the football team, contributing largely to Carlisle
victories over some of
the most powerful teams in the country. In 1911 and
1912 he made the
All-American team. Thorpe excelled during this period in
many other sports,
including track and field, baseball, lacrosse, basketball,
ice hockey, swimming,
boxing, tennis, and archery. Thorpe was a member of the
United States track and
field team at the Olympic Games of 1912 and he was
widely recognized as the
world's greatest all-around athlete after he won
both the pentathlon and the
decathlon. Early in 1913, however, the Amateur
Athletic Union (AAU), after
learning that he had played semiprofessional
baseball, voided his amateur status
and disallowed his Olympic victories. In
1982 the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) restored both his amateur
status and his two Olympic medals
after his death. Thorpe played professional
baseball, notably with the New York
Giants and the Boston Braves, from
1913 to 1919, when his weakness as a hitter
forced him to retire. Meanwhile,
in 1915, he had organized the Bulldogs, a
professional football club from
Canton, Ohio. After a series of outstanding
seasons with the Bulldogs and
other teams he retired from football in 1929.
Thorpe subsequently had a
few small parts as an actor in motion pictures,
lectured on Native American
culture, and served as a seaman in the U.S. Merchant
Marine during World
War II. In 1950 nearly 400 American sportswriters and
broadcasters selected
Thorpe as the greatest all-around athlete and football
player of the first
half of the 20th century. He was elected to the Pro Football
Hall of Fame
in 1963. On March 28 1953, Jim Thorpe’s life came to an end.
Although his
time was over, his legend would live on in American history. His
name would
pop up on television and in the magazines whenever people were
talking about
sports greats. The state of Pennsylvania even named a town after
him. Even
recently on the ESPN’s "50 greatest athletes of the 20th century.
He
placed in the top 5! All over the world, Jim Thorpe will always be
remembered
and his stories will forever be passed down among generations.