JIM THORPE

The Greatest Athlete in the World

Track, football, baseball - and the Olympic Games. All were conquered by this Indian descendant.

Jim Thorpe was born in Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma in 1888 with the name Wa-tho-huck, which means Bright Path. He was part Sac and Fox indian, with some French and Irish also. In 1904 he enrolled at the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It was here that his athletic abilities were developed. He became a star on the school's track and football teams. He was named to the All-American Football Team twice, but his greatest achievements came during the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden.

At the Olympics, he won two gold medals, in the most physically demanding events there were - the five-event Pentathlon and the ten-event Decathlon. He not only won these events, but his performance caused King Gustav V of Sweden to say to him, "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world."

His gold medals did not last long, however. It was discovered that Thorpe had played minor league baseball in 1909 and 1910, for which he had been paid. Unknown to Thorpe, this took away his amateur status, and the Olympic Committee stripped him of his Olympic medals and records. Finally in 1982, the Olympic Committee reversed this decision, and ruled that the unintentional violation was not severe enough to warrant the punishment and reinstated the medals in his name to his family.

Thorpe went on to play both professional baseball and football. Most notable was his professional football career with the Canton, Ohio, Bulldogs. In 1920, he was named the first Commissioner of the National Football League. Thorpe was elected to both the College Football Hall of Fame and the Professional Football Hall of Fame, and was voted as both the greatest football player and the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century by the Associated Press. He died in 1953.