In a world where the wasting of millions of dollars on people whose main talent is hitting, throwing, catching, or “dunking” a ball into some hole or open space. Walls are polluted with posters of these athletes in their stereotypical athletic poses. Nevertheless, the tearing and throwing of these posters will happen and be replaced with another athlete in that same pose or if the person is smart enough, it will be replaced with a poster of a poet or an artist. This is the reality of sports; there are no great sports figures anymore, because all the great ones are cast aside and forgotten, like Jim Thorpe. Jim Thorpe was a multisport athlete that few people know about because the politics of sports destroyed him.
Jim Thorpe was born on May 28th, 1887 or 1888, his birth day and year has been questioned, in Oklahoma. His father “Hiram Thorpe, a farmer, and Mary James, a Pottawatomie Indian and descendant of the last great Sauk and Fox chief Black Hawk, a noted warrior and athlete. Jim was actually born a twin, but his brother Charlie died at the age of nine. His Indian name, Wa-Tho-Huk, translated to “Bright Path,” something that Thorpe definitely had ahead of him.”[1] Thorpe and his brother, Charlie, went to Sac and Fox Indian Agency School, a reservation school. Thorpe hated school and ran away numerous times. His pre-teen years were difficult, his twin brother Charlie contracted pneumonia, and died. His mother had passed away from complications of giving birth. He had quit school, left home, and worked as a hand on a horse farm. At the age of sixteen, he went to a reservation school called Carlisle Industrial School, it taught Native Americans industrial skills to enter the work force. Thorpe was a natural athlete that stemmed from his earlier years of hunting, fishing, and working on farms. When Jim was at Carlisle, he was walking pass the track “when he saw some upperclassmen practicing the high jump. He was 5-foot-8, and the bar was set at 5-9. Thorpe asked if he could try—and jumped it in overalls and a hickory work shirt.”[2] Pop Warner, famous college football coach, put him on the track team; Jim also competed in football, baseball, lacrosse, and ballroom dancing where he won a championship. In football, he was “a running back, defensive back, placekicker, and punter. Thorpe scored points for the whole game—four field goals and a touchdown—winning 18–15 against Harvard, a top ranked team in those early days of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.”[3] He was an All American and a continued to be a champion even after the ending of his school career.
Football was always Thorpe’s favorite sport, however, it was track and field that earned him fame, and later controversy. Thorpe was unlike other athletes at that time. He did not know anything about the techniques or the grace of track field. He used imitation and visualization to perfect a sport. He studied other athletes as closely as he could. He used the visualization techniques he learned while working on a horse farm. He was always watching for a new motion that would benefit him.[4] Moreover, his muscular built and stoic, yet intimidating looks helped him with jumping over hurdles and throwing the javelin, even though he had no idea how to throw a javelin. “He was so inexperienced in the javelin that when he competed in the Eastern Olympic Trials in New York’s Celtic Park, he didn’t know he could take a running start. Instead, he threw from a standing position with “the awkwardness of a novice,” according to a reporter. Nevertheless, he managed second place.”[5] Thorpe loved the excitement and passion of football but track and field was the path to Olympic gold, and the path to his destruction.
Sweden was where the Olympics were held in 1912. Thorpe and the US team sailed to Sweden on a ship called Finland. Thorpe competed in the pentathlon and decathlon. The pentathlon is five events, or at least according to Britannica.com, a race, the long jump, discus throw, javelin throw, “and a wrestling match between the two athletes who performed best in the previous four events.” And the decathlon is “a 10-event athletic contest; specifically: a composite contest that consists of the 100- meter, 400-meter, and 1500-meter runs, the 110-meter high hurdles, the javelin and discus throws, shot put, pole vault, high jump, and long jump.”[6] Thorpe was a busy man. Even in the rain, mud, and missing shoes, Jim Thorpe won both events with both the fastest time and highest points. The King of Sweden called him “the greatest athlete in the world.” He was treated like a hero when he came back home, this did not last long.
The Olympics, then, had strict rules about who or who could not take part in the games. “Athletes who received money prizes for competitions, were sports teachers, or had competed previously against professionals were not considered amateurs and were barred from competition.”[7] Thorpe, according to newspaper article, played professional baseball for two seasons. He was not unlike other college athletes who over the summer would play in the professionals. However, the majority athletes used fake names, but Jim did not. The public did not care, but the Amateur Athletic Union and the International Olympic Commission did. He wrote a letter, defending himself:
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…[8]
His plea did not work and International Olympic Commission took away his medals and erased him from their records. This was “to punish him for violating the elitist Victorian codes of amateurism. It also intended obscure him—and to a certain extent it succeeded.”[9] The loss of his medals did not stop Thorpe’s determination to be in sports. He played professional baseball, football, and basketball. However, when his career was over it was hard for him to find or stay at a job. The Great Depression, his generosity, his alcoholism, and maybe his ethnicity kept him from keeping any money. He could not support his family, which included seven children and three ex wives. He had lip cancer and was admitted to the hospital for charitable purposes. Three years later, he died from heart failure at the age of 64.
Thorpe has received honors after his death, like named The Greatest Athlete of the first half of the 20th century by the Associated Press. The same paper also named him The Greatest American football player, and was one of the top three athletes of the best North American athletes of the 20th century. The Pro Football Hall of Fame, the College Football Fame, the American Olympic team, and the National Track and Field Competition all inducted him. His Olympic medals and records were reinstated in 1982. Moreover, there is even a town named after him in Pennsylvania. I agree this is all great, organizations and the presses are now recognizing the greatness that was Jim Thorpe. However, why was this glory and honors only bestowed to Thorpe after his death? Why did he have to struggle for his life, while today sports stars can earn millions, and live comfortably, just be endorsing some burger? To be honest, it is not fair that Thorpe had to struggle for the rest of his life, forgotten by the mainstream, and then get honors after his death. That will never happen to most modern athletes, unfortunately.
[1] http://www.cmgww.com/sports/thorpe/bio/bio.html
[2] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-are-jim-thorpes-olympic-records-still-not-recognized-130986336/#Y3hKb15SJsdqwosX.99
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe
[4] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-are-jim-thorpes-olympic-records-still-not-recognized-130986336/#lrlmHDQ8Z6uc2EOv.99
[5] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-are-jim-thorpes-olympic-records-still-not-recognized-130986336/#I2Jog15kZKtJax6f.99
[6] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decathlon
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe
[9] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-are-jim-thorpes-olympic-records-still-not-recognized-130986336/#h2VxVOB1HyqVCHK1.99