Jim Thorpe

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For other people named Jim Thorpe, see Jim Thorpe (disambiguation).
Jim Thorpe
Career history
Canton Bulldogs
Cleveland Indians
Oorang Indians
Rock Island Independents
New York Giants
Canton Bulldogs
Chicago Cardinals
Jim Thorpe
Medal record
Olympic Games
Men’s Athletics
Gold medal – first place 1912 Stockholm Pentathlon
Gold medal – first place 1912 Stockholm Decathlon

Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe (Meskwaki: Wa-Tho-Huk) (May 28 1888–March 28 1953[1]) was an American athlete. Considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, played American football collegiately and professionally, and also played professional baseball and basketball. He subsequently lost his Olympic titles when it was found he had played two seasons of minor league baseball prior to competing in the games (thus violating the amateur status rules).

Thorpe was primarily of Native American ancestry. He was raised as a Sac and Fox, and named Wa-Tho-Huk, roughly translated as "Bright Path". He struggled with racism throughout much of his life and his accomplishments were publicized with headlines describing him as a "Redskin" and "Indian athlete". He also played on several All-American Indian teams throughout his career, and barnstormed as a professional basketball player with a teams composed entirely of Native Americans.

Thorpe was named the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century by the Associated Press (AP) in 1950, and ranked third on the AP list of athletes of the century in 1999. After his professional sports career ended Thorpe lived in abject poverty. He worked several odd jobs, struggled with alcoholism, and lived out the last years of his life in failing health. In 1983, thirty years after his death, his medals were restored.

Early life

Information about Thorpe's birth, full name, and ethnic background vary widely.[2] What is known is that he was born in Indian Territory, but no birth certificate has been found. Thorpe's birth is generally considered to have taken place on May 28 1888[1] near the town of Prague, Oklahoma.[3] Jacobus Francis Thorpe is the name on his christening (baptismal) certificate.

His parents were of mixed descent. His father, Hiram Thorpe, had an Irish father and a Sac and Fox Indian mother, while his mother, Charlotte Vieux, had a French father and a Native American mother. Thorpe was raised as a Sac and Fox, and his native name was Wa-Tho-Huk, translated as "A path lighted by a great flash of lightning" or more simply "Bright Path".[2] As was the custom for Sac and Fox, Thorpe was named for something occurring around the time of his birth, in this case the sunlight brightening the path to the cabin where he was born. Thorpe's mother was Catholic and raised the children in the faith, which Thorpe later observed throughout his adult life.[4]

Together with his twin brother, Charlie, Thorpe went to school in Stroud, Oklahoma at the Sac and Fox Indian Agency School. Charlie died of pneumonia when they were nine years old.[5] Charlie had helped Jim through school. As a result, Thorpe did not handle his brother's death very well, and ran away from school on several occasions. Hiram Thorpe then sent Jim to what is now known as Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, so that his son would not run away again.[6] When his mother died two years later, Thorpe fell into a depression. After several arguments with his father, he ran away from home to work on a horse ranch.[6]

In 1904, Thorpe returned to his father, and decided to join Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he was coached by Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner, one of the most influential coaches in early American football history.[7] Later that year, Hiram Thorpe died. Thorpe once again dropped out of school. He resumed farm work for a few years and then returned to Carlisle, where his athletic career commenced.[6]

College career

Jim Thorpe in Carlisle Indian Industrial School uniform, about 1909

Thorpe reportedly began his athletic career at Carlisle in 1907 when he walked past the track and beat the school's high jumpers with an impromptu 5 ft 9 in jump while still wearing plain clothes.[8] His earliest recorded track and field results are indeed from 1907. But track and field were certainly not the only events in which Thorpe engaged at Carlisle—he also participated in football, baseball, lacrosse and even ballroom dancing. Reportedly, Pop Warner was hesitant to allow Thorpe, his star track and field athlete, to compete in a physical game such as football.[9] Thorpe however, coerced Warner into allowing him to run some plays against the school's defense; Warner assumed he would be tackled easily and give up the idea of playing football.[9] Thorpe "ran around past and through them not once, but twice."[9] He then walked over to Warner and said "[n]obody is going to tackle Jim," while flipping him the ball.[9]

He gained nationwide attention for the first time in 1911.[10] As a running back, defensive back, placekicker, and punter for his school's football team; Thorpe scored all of his team's points—four field goals and a touchdown—in an 18-13 upset of Harvard.[9] His team finished the season 11–1. The following year, he led Carlisle to the national collegiate championship, scoring 25 touchdowns and 198 points.[7] Carlisle's 1912 record includes a 27-6 victory over Army.[3] In that game, Thorpe scored a 92-yard touchdown that was annulled because of a penalty incurred by a teammate. Thorpe then scored a 97-yard touchdown on the next play.[11] He was given All-American honors in both 1911 and 1912.[3]

During that game, future President Dwight Eisenhower injured his knee while trying to tackle Thorpe. Eisenhower recalled of Thorpe in a 1961 speech, "Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw."[7]

Football was—and would remain—Thorpe's favorite sport,[12] and he competed only sporadically in track and field. Nevertheless, track and field would become the sport in which Thorpe would gain the most fame.

Olympic career

Thorpe leaps into action at the 1912 Olympics.

For the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, two new multi-event disciplines were on the program, the pentathlon and the decathlon. A pentathlon based on the ancient Greek event had been organized at the 1906 Summer Olympics, but the 1912 edition would consist of the long jump, the javelin throw, 200-meter dash, the discus throw and the 1500-meter run.

The decathlon was an entirely new event in athletics, although it had been competed in American track meets since the 1880s and a version had been featured on the program of the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. However, the events of the new decathlon were slightly different from the U.S. version. Both events seemed a fit for Thorpe, who was so versatile that he alone had formed Carlisle's team on several track meets.[3] He could run the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat, the 220 in 21.8, the 440 in 51.8, the 880 in 1:57, the mile in 4:35, 120-yard high hurdles in 15 seconds, and the 220-yard low hurdles in 24 seconds.[3] He could broad-jump 23 ft 6 in and high-jump 6 ft 5 in.[3] He could pole vault 11 feet, put the shot 47 ft 9 in, throw the javelin 163 feet, and the discus 136 feet.[3] Thorpe entered the U.S. Olympic trials for both the pentathlon and the decathlon.

He easily won the awards, winning three events, and was named to the pentathlon team, which also included future IOC president Avery Brundage. There were only a few candidates for the decathlon team, and the trials were cancelled. Thorpe would contest his first—and, as it turned out, only—decathlon in the Olympics. Thorpe's Olympic record 8,413 points would stand for nearly two decades.[8]

Thorpe's competition schedule for the Olympics was crowded. Along with the decathlon and pentathlon, he also entered the long jump and high jump competitions. The first event scheduled was the pentathlon. Thorpe was the class of the field, winning four events. He placed only third in the javelin, an event he had not contested before 1912. Although the competition was primarily decided on place points, points were also calculated for the marks achieved in the events.

The same day he won the pentathlon gold, Thorpe qualified for the high-jump final. In that final, he placed fourth, and took seventh place in the long jump. Thorpe's final event was the decathlon, where tough competition from local favorite Hugo Wieslander was expected. Thorpe, however, also easily defeated Wieslander, finishing nearly 700 points ahead of him. He placed in the top four of all ten events. Overall, Thorpe won eight of the two competitions' 15 individual events.[7]

As was the custom of the day, the medals were presented to the athletes during the closing ceremonies of the Games. Along with the two gold medals, Thorpe also received two challenge prizes, which were donated by King Gustav V of Sweden for the decathlon and Czar Nicholas II of Russia for the pentathlon. Legend has it that, when awarding Thorpe his prize, King Gustav said, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world," to which Thorpe replied, "Thanks, King."[13]

Thorpe's successes had not gone unnoticed at home, and he was honored with a ticker-tape parade on Broadway.[13] He later remembered: "I heard people yelling my name, and I couldn't realize how one fellow could have so many friends."[13]

Apart from his track and field appearance, Thorpe also played in one of two exhibition baseball matches held at the 1912 Olympics, which featured two teams made up of U.S. track and field athletes. It was not Thorpe's first try at baseball, as would soon become known to the rest of the world.

Declared a professional

In 1913, strict rules regarding amateurism were in force for athletes participating in the Olympics. Athletes who received money prizes for competitions, were sports teachers or who had previously competed against professionals were not considered amateurs, and were not allowed to compete in the Olympics.

In late January 1913, U.S. newspapers published stories announcing that Thorpe had played professional baseball. It is not entirely certain which newspaper first published the story; the earliest article found is from the Providence Times, but the Worcester Telegram is usually mentioned as the first.[13] Thorpe had indeed played professional baseball in the Eastern Carolina League for Rocky Mount, North Carolina in 1909 and 1910, receiving meager pay; reportedly as litle as $2 a game and as much as $35 a week.[14] College players, in fact, regularly spent summers playing professionally, but most, as opposed to Thorpe, used aliases.[7]

Although the public did not seem to care much about Thorpe's past,[15] the Amateur Athletic Union, and especially its secretary James E. Sullivan, took the case very seriously.[16] Thorpe wrote a letter to Sullivan, in which he admitted playing professional baseball:[13]

...I hope I will be partly excused by the fact that I was simply an Indian schoolboy and did not know all about such things. In fact, I did not know that I was doing wrong, because I was doing what I knew several other college men had done, except that they did not use their own names...

His letter did not help, and the AAU decided to retroactively withdraw Thorpe's amateur status, and requested the IOC to do the same. Later that year, the IOC unanimously decided to strip Jim Thorpe of his Olympic titles, medals and awards, and declared him a professional.

While Thorpe had indeed played for money, his disqualification was in fact not according to the regulations. In the rulebook for the 1912 Olympics, it was stated that any protests had to be made within 30 days from the closing ceremonies of the Games.[11] The first newspaper reports only appeared in January 1913, about six months after the Stockholm Games had concluded.[11] However, AAU and IOC officials were apparently ignorant of this rule, or chose to ignore it. There is also some evidence that Thorpe's amateur status had already been questioned long before the Olympics, but that this had been (deliberately) ignored by the AAU until they were confronted with it in 1913.

The only positive side to this affair for Thorpe was that, as soon as the news got out that he had been declared a professional, offers came in from professional clubs.[17]

Declared a rare free agent in the era of the reserve clause Jim Thorpe had his pick of teams to play for.[18] He turned down a starting position with the St. Louis Browns to be a reserve with the New York Giants. One of the immediate benefits of joining the team came that October when the Giants joined the Chicago White Sox for a world tour.[19] Barnstorming across the United States and then around the world, Thorpe was the unquestioned star of the world tour.[20] Everywhere the teams went Thorpe brought them publicity and increased the tour's box office everywhere. Among the highlights were a meeting with the Pope, the last khedive of Egypt, and playing before 20,000 in London with King George V in attendance. While in Rome Thorpe was filmed wrestling with another baseball player on the floor of the Coliseum. Unfortunately every square inch of the film has been lost to time.

Baseball, football, and basketball

Thorpe played football for Canton from 1915 through 1920. He also played 52 NFL games.

He signed with the New York Giants (baseball) in 1913 and played sporadically there as an outfielder for three seasons. After missing the 1916 season completely, he came back to play again for the Giants in 1917, but was sold to the Cincinnati Reds early in the season. In the "double no-hitter" between Fred Toney of the Reds and Hippo Vaughn of the Chicago Cubs, Thorpe drove in the winning run in the 10th inning.[21] Late in the season, he was sold back to the Giants. Again, he played sporadically for the Giants in 1918 and was traded to the Boston Braves on May 21, 1919 for Pat Ragan. In his career, he amassed 91 runs scored, 82 runs batted in and a .252 batting average over 289 games.[22] He continued to play baseball with teams in the minor leagues until 1922.

But Thorpe had not abandoned football either. Back in 1915, Thorpe had signed with the Canton Bulldogs. They paid him $250 a game, a tremendous wage at the time.[23] Before Thorpe's signing Canton was averaging 1,200 fans a game; 8,000 showed up for his debut against Massillon.[23] The team won titles in 1916, 1917, and 1919. Thorpe reportedly ended the 1919 championship game by kicking a wind-assisted 95–yard punt from his team's own 5 yard line, effectively putting the game out of reach.[23] In 1920, the Bulldogs were one of the fourteen teams to form the American Professional Football Association, which would become the National Football League two years later. Thorpe was nominally the APFA's first president however, he spent most of the year playing for Canton and a year later was replaced by Joseph Carr.[24] He continued to play for Canton, coaching the team as well. Between 1921 and 1923, Thorpe played for the La Rue, Ohio (Marion County, Ohio) Oorang Indians, an all Native American team. Although the team went 3–6 in 1922,[25] and 1–10 in 1923,[26] Thorpe played well and was selected to the Green Bay Press Gazette's first All-NFL team in 1923 (the Gazette's team would later be formalized by the NFL as the league's official All-NFL team in 1931).[27]

Thorpe never played on a championship team, although he played for six different teams between 1920 and 1928. He retired from pro football aged 41,[5] having played 52 NFL games.

File:WFI.jpg
World Famous Indians letterhead

Thorpe continued to be active in sports. By 1926 he was the primary draw for the "World Famous Indians" in LaRue which sponsored traveling football, baseball, and basketball teams. A ticket discovered in an old book recently brought to light his career in basketball. "Jim Thorpe and His World-Famous Indians" barnstormed for at least two years (1927–1928) in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Marion, Ohio. Although images of Thorpe in his WFI basketball uniform were printed on postcards and published in newspapers, this period of his life was not well-documented, and until 2005 most of Thorpe's biographers were unaware of his basketball career.[28]

Later life and death

In 1913, Thorpe married Iva Miller,[3] whom he had met at Carlisle. They had four children: Jim Jr. (who died at age 2), Gale, Charlotte and Grace.[3] Thorpe was a chronic alcoholic in his later years.[29]

Thorpe remarried in 1926 to Freeda Kirkpatrick (1906? – 2007), the manager of the baseball team he was playing for at the time.[30] They had four sons: Carl, William, Richard, and John.[3] After the end of his athletic career, Thorpe struggled to support his family. He found it difficult to work outside sports, and never kept a job for an extended period of time; during the Great Depression in particular, Thorpe held various jobs. Among other jobs, he featured as an extra in several movies, usually playing an Indian chief in Western movies. But he also worked as a construction worker, a bouncer, ditch digger, and briefly joined the United States Merchant Marine in 1945.[31] Four years earlier, his second wife had divorced him, as she was fed up with Thorpe regularly being away from home for weeks at a time.

By the 1950s, Thorpe had no money left, and when he was hospitalized for lip cancer in 1950, he was admitted as a charity case.[32] At a press conference announcing the procedure Thorpe's wife wept and plead for help saying "[w]e're broke...Jim has nothing but his name and his memories. He has spent money on his own people and has given it away. He has often been exploited."[32] In early 1953, Thorpe suffered his third heart attack while eating dinner with his third wife, Patricia Askew, in his trailer home in Lomita, California. Artificial respiration briefly revived Thorpe and he was able to speak to those around him, but he lost consciousness shortly afterwards, and died on March 28 1953.[3]

Racism

Thorpe's accomplishments occurred during a period of racism and racial inequality in America. His first appearance in The New York Times ran with the headline "Indian Thorpe in Olympiad.; Redskin from Carlisle Will Strive for Place on American Team",[10] and his accomplishments were described in a similar racial context by other newspapers and sportswriters.[33] It has been often suggested that his medals were stripped due to his ethnicity,[34] and although this has never been proven, public outcry at the time largely reflected this view.[35] He also won his gold medals before Native Americans were recognized as citizens; American Indians were granted dual citizenship in 1924 and it was not until the passing of a 1954 Civil Right Bill, one year after Thorpe's death, that Native Americans were granted the right to vote.[36]

Legacy

When Thorpe's third wife, Patricia, heard that the small Pennsylvania town of Mauch Chunk was desperately seeking to attract business, she struck a deal with the town. Mauch Chunk bought Thorpe's remains, erected a monument to him, and renamed the town in his honor (see Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania), despite the fact that Thorpe had never set foot in the city.[37] Thorpe's monument, featuring the quote from Gustav V, can still be found there.

Thorpe also received great acclaim from the press. In 1950, an Associated Press poll of nearly 400 sportswriters and broadcasters voted Thorpe the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century.[38] In 1999, the Associated Press placed him third on their list of athletes of the century list behind Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan,[39] and ESPN ranked him seventh on their list of North American athletes of the century.[40] In addition, on May 27, 1999 the United States House of Representatives passed resolution 198 designating Thorpe as "America's athlete of the century".[41]

Thorpe was also named the "greatest American football player" of the first half of the century by the Associated Press in 1950,[42] and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963. He is often said to be the first player inducted, although the first person inducted was Chicago Bears founder, owner, coach and player George Halas. In addition, Thorpe is also memorialized in the Pro Football Hall of Fame rotunda with the larger-than-life Jim Thorpe Statue, as well as being a member of the college football, U.S. Olympic, and national track and field halls of fame.[7] In 1986 an award was established in his name by the the Jim Thorpe Association. The Jim Thorpe Award is awarded annually to the best defensive back in college football.

Thorpe was also memorialized in the 1951 film Jim Thorpe -- All-American. The film starred Burt Lancaster and was directed by Michael Curtiz (the director of Casablanca). Although Thorpe was listed as a consultant in the credits, he did not earn any money for the movie, as he had already sold the film rights to MGM in 1931 (for $1,500).[43] The movie was titled Man of Bronze when released in the UK. It included some archival footage of both the 1912 and 1932 Olympics, as well as a banquet in which Thorpe was honored. The real Thorpe was seen in some long shots in the film.

Reinstated

File:Jim Thorpe stamp.png
The USPS recognized Thorpe's achievements with a postage stamp.

Over the years, several attempts were made to reinstate Thorpe's Olympic titles.[44] US Olympic officials, such as former teammate Avery Brundage, rebuked several attempts with Brundage once saying, "[i]gnorance is no excuse."[45] Most persistent was that of Robert Wheeler and Florence Ridlon. They succeeded in having the AAU and United States Olympic Committee (USOC) overturn their decisions and restore Thorpe's amateur status prior to 1913.[46]

In 1982, they set the Jim Thorpe Foundation, and managed to get support from the US Congress. Armed with this support, and evidence from 1912 showing Thorpe's disqualification had occurred outside of the 30-day limit, they finally got attention from the IOC, which had not made any attempts to reinstate Thorpe.

In October 1982, the IOC Executive Committee approved Thorpe's reinstatement.[14] In an unusual ruling, however, they declared that Thorpe was now co-champion with Bie and Wieslander, even though both athletes had always said they considered Thorpe to be the only champion. In a ceremony on January 18, 1983, two of Thorpe's children, Gale and Bill, were presented with commemorative medals[14] (The original medals had both ended up in museums, but were stolen and are still missing).[47]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Magill. pg. 2320
    * Gerasimo and Whiteley. pg. 28
    * World-Class Athlete Jim Thorpe Was Born May 28, 1888, americaslibrary.gov, accessed April 23, 2007.
  2. ^ a b O'Hanlon-Lincoln. pg. 129
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Jim Thorpe Is Dead On West Coast at 64, The New York Times, March 29, 1953, accessed April 23, 2007.
  4. ^ O'Hanlon-Lincoln. pg. 131
  5. ^ a b Jim Thorpe – Fast facts , cgmworldwide.com, accessed April 23, 2007.
  6. ^ a b c Jim Thorpe - Olympic Hero and Native American, olympics30.com, accessed April 23, 2007.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Botelho, Greg. Roller-coaster life of Indian icon, sports' first star, CNN.com, July 14, 2004, accessed April 23, 2007.
  8. ^ a b Encyclopedia of World Biography. Jim Thorpe, Thomson-Gale, 2005-06, accessed April 23, 2007. available online at bookrags.com.
  9. ^ a b c d e Jeansonne. pg. 60
  10. ^ a b Indian Thorpe in Olympiad.; Redskin from Carlisle Will Strive for Place on American Team., The New York Times, April 28, 1912, accessed April 2, 2007.
  11. ^ a b c Jim Thorpe, usoc.org, accessed April 26, 2007.
  12. ^ O'Hanlon-Lincoln pg. 144
    * Jim Thorpe, profootballhalloffame.com, accessed April 23, 2007.
  13. ^ a b c d e Flatter, Ron. Thorpe preceded Deion, Bo, ESPN.com, accessed April 23, 2007.
  14. ^ a b c Anderson, Dave. Jim Thorpe's Family Feud, The New York Times, February 7, 1983, accessed April 23, 2007.
  15. ^ Schaffer and Smith. pg. 50
  16. ^ Schaffer and Smith. pg 40
  17. ^ Rogge, Johnson, and Rendell. pg. 60
  18. ^ Thorpe is to Play Ball with Giants; Famous Indian Athlete Accepts McGraw's Terms Over the Telephone., The New York Times, February 1, 1913, accessed April 2, 2007.
  19. ^ Sox and Giants on World's Tour; Comiskey-McGraw Party Leaves Chicago Oct. 19 and Arrives in New York March 6., The New York Times, , accessed April 23, 2007.
  20. ^ Elfers. pg. 210
  21. ^ Daley, Arthur. Baseball's 'Ten Greatest Moments', The New York Times, April 17, 1949, accessed April 23, 2007.
  22. ^ Jim Thorpe, baseball-reference.com, accessed April 23, 2007.
  23. ^ a b c Neft, Cohen, and Korch. pg. 18
  24. ^ Neft, Cohen, and Korch. pg. 20
  25. ^ Neft, Cohen, and Korch. pg. 34
  26. ^ Neft, Cohen, and Korch. pg. 40
  27. ^ Neft, Cohen, and Korch. pg. 41
  28. ^ Jim Thorpe Ticket, pbs.org, accessed April 23, 2007.
  29. ^ Jeansonne. pg 61
  30. ^ Associated Press. Freeda Thorpe, former wife of Jim Thorpe, dies at 101, yahoo.com, March 7 2007, accessed April 23, 2007.
  31. ^ O'Hanlon-Lincoln pgs. 144–5
  32. ^ a b Associated Press. Thorpe Has Cancerous Growth Removed From Lip in Hospital at Philadelphia, The New York Times, November 10, 1951, accessed April 23, 2007.
  33. ^ Demaree, Al. Thorpe, the Indian, Best All-American, Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1926, accessed May 12, 2007.
    * Jim Thorpe Dies of Heart Attack at 64 Chicago Tribune, March 29, 1953, accessed May 12, 2007.
  34. ^ Watterson. pg. 151
    * Elfers. pg. 18
  35. ^ Schaffer and Smith. pg. 50
  36. ^ Lincoln and Slagle. pg. 282
  37. ^ O'Hanlon-Lincoln pg. 148
  38. ^ Jim Thorpe encarta.msn.com, accessed April 23, 2007.
  39. ^ Associated Press. Top 100 athletes of the 20th century, USA Today, December 21, 1999, accessed March 15, 2007.
  40. ^ Top N. American athletes of the century, espn.com, accessed March 15, 2007.
  41. ^ Landrum. pg. 17
  42. ^ Jim Thorpe Biography, cgmworldwide.com, accessed April 23, 2007.
  43. ^ O'Hanlon-Lincoln pg. 145
  44. ^ Anderson, Dave. Jim Thorpe's Medals, The New York Times, June 22, 1975, accessed April 23, 2007.
  45. ^ Reuters. Jim Thorpe cruelly treated by authorities, sportsillustrated.cnn.com, August 8, 2004, accessed April 23, 2007.
  46. ^ Wethe, David and Whiteley, Michael. Legends lunches begin this fall with Bob Lilly, Dallas Business Journal, July 19, 2002, accessed April 27, 2007.
  47. ^ O'Hanlon-Lincoln. pg 132

Sources

  • Elfers, James E. The Tour to End All Tours, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2003 ISBN 0803267487
  • Gerasimo, Luisa and Whiteley, Sandra. The Teacher's Calendar of Famous Birthdays. McGraw-Hill, 2003 ISBN 0071412301
  • Jeansonne, Glen. A Time of Paradox: America Since 1890. Rowman & Littlefield, 2006 ISBN 0742533778
  • Landrum, Dr. Gene. Empowerment: The Competitive Edge in Sports, Business & Life, Brendan Kelly Publishing Incorporated, 2006 ISBN 1895997240
  • Lincln, Kenneth and Slagle, Al Logan. The Good Red Road: Passages into Native America, University of Nebraska Press, 1997 ISBN 0803279744
  • Magill, Frank Northen. Great Lives from History. New York: Salem Press, 1987 ISBN 0893565296
  • Neft, David S., Cohen, Richard M., and Korch, Rick. The Complete History of Professional Football from 1892 to the Present. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994 ISBN 0312114354
  • O'Hanlon-Lincoln, Ceane. Chronicles: A Vivid Collection of Fayette County, Pennsylvania Histories, Mechling Bookbindery. 2006 ISBN 0976056348
  • Rogge, M. Jacque, Johnson, Michael, and Rendell, Matt. The Olympics: Athens to Athens 1896-2004, Sterling Publishing. 2004 ISBN 0297843826
  • Schaffer, Kay and Smith, Sidonie. The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics and the Games, Rutger University Press, 2000 ISBN 0813528208
  • Watterson, John Sayle. College Football: history, spectacle, controversy, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000 080187114X

Further reading

  • The Best of the Athletic Boys: The White Man's Impact on Jim Thorpe, by Jack Newcombe, 1975. ISBN 0385061862
  • Jim Thorpe, the Legend Remembered, by Rosemary Kissinger Updyke, 1997 ISBN 1565545397
  • In the Matter of Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe, published in The 1912 Olympic Games - Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary by Bill Mallon and Ture Widlund, 2002. ISBN 0786410477
  • The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics (Sydney 2000 Edition) by David Wallechinsky, 2000. ISBN 1585670464
  • Jim Thorpe: The World's Greatest Athlete by Robert W. Wheeler, 2003 ISBN 0806117451

External links

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