Speaker 1: There are so many ways we can memorialize the greats.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Jim Twlly Tour.
Speaker 1: Certainly a special tour today.
Speaker 3: All right, we're gonna roll over the Lehigh now beautiful.
Speaker 1: There are murals, TV specials, parades, even podcasts.
Speaker 4: Of that incline is where they would drag the empty
Speaker 4: coal cars and then leaves.
Speaker 1: But naming a town after someone, that's next level.
Speaker 5: Well, there's a Jim Thorpe neighborhood bank, there's Jim Thorpe trolley.
Speaker 1: There's a Jim Thorpe inn And we're standing in front
Speaker 1: of the field for which high school?
Speaker 5: Jim Thorpe Perry High School.
Speaker 1: And the name of the team is the Jim Thorpe Olympians.
Speaker 1: That's Michael J. Sofranco. He's the mayor of jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Yes,
Speaker 1: the town is named for the legendary Native American athlete
Speaker 1: and hero of the nineteen twelve Stockholm, Sweden Olympics, Jim Thorpe.
Speaker 1: And yes, I know that Pennsylvanians call their towns burrows,
Speaker 1: and that their state is not a state, it's a commonwealth.
Speaker 5: In nineteen seventy we go somewhere and they'd say where
Speaker 5: you're from, and I'd say Jim Thorpe. They'd say, I
Speaker 5: don't want your name, I want to know where you live.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful town, nestled in a valley of the
Speaker 1: Pocono Mountains and nicknamed the Switzerland of America, and it's
Speaker 1: graced with more than just Jim Thorpe's name.
Speaker 5: I think that there's one thing you can say having
Speaker 5: Jim Thorpe's body here, it has brought a community together.
Speaker 1: That's right on the east side of town. Thorpe is
Speaker 1: buried in a red granite mausoleum emblazoned with images of
Speaker 1: his spectacular triumph at the Olympics. It was a high
Speaker 1: point for Thorpe, as he'd later.
Speaker 6: Recall Mann, the greatest athlete of the world, but a
Speaker 6: kiss Layton, I think is one of my great moments
Speaker 6: in my life.
Speaker 1: The Hillside memorial draws fans still in awe of Thorpe's achievements,
Speaker 1: not just in track and field, but also in baseball
Speaker 1: and football.
Speaker 7: I'm an old football fan, and my dad loved Jim Thorpe.
Speaker 8: He was the world's best athlete as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: He still is nothing. He couldn't do anything he could do.
Speaker 1: Don't you wish you had? Those powers?
Speaker 9: Are just some of them?
Speaker 1: Now, if you're wondering what relationship Jim Thorpe, the man
Speaker 1: has to the town named for him, you're not alone.
Speaker 2: How many of you guys know how long Jim lived
Speaker 2: in this town?
Speaker 6: Never?
Speaker 2: That's correct, Jim?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Really, he had never set foot in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Did you know that he never actually set foot in
Speaker 1: here before he was buried here?
Speaker 9: Really?
Speaker 3: You know, I thought that this was where he was from,
Speaker 3: to be honest with you, went that's the history of it. Huh.
Speaker 1: That Jim Thorpe ended up in a town he never
Speaker 1: lived in is only the final twist in a roller
Speaker 1: coaster life.
Speaker 10: To me, he as a young person, he was like
Speaker 10: a Hercules or even like a superman.
Speaker 1: From becoming the world's first sports superstar.
Speaker 9: No one has had that triad of being an All
Speaker 9: American football player, a winner of the gold medal in
Speaker 9: the decathlon and the pentathlon, and a Major League baseball player.
Speaker 9: And he was great at ballroom dancing, lacrosse ross. People
Speaker 9: said he was good at marbles.
Speaker 2: Is it true?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 1: Just surviving modern sports. First scandal Jim thort an American Indian,
Speaker 1: the only winner of both Pentathlon and the Katla.
Speaker 2: Later for playing semi pro baseball before the games. His
Speaker 2: name is erased from the role of the victories.
Speaker 1: To his surprise third act in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Jim Poor, All American, the main of Bronze who became
Speaker 2: the greatest athlete of all time. It's Burt Lancaster as
Speaker 2: Jim Port.
Speaker 1: From CBS Sunday Morning and iHeart I'm Morocca. This is
Speaker 1: mobituaries this moment Jim Thorpe, March twenty eighth, nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: death of an All American.
Speaker 9: While the rocks are from visitors, probably most of them
Speaker 9: from Native people's totems and sort of symbols of respect
Speaker 9: for Thorpe, the great one.
Speaker 1: I'm standing in front of Jim Thorpe's mausoleum with historian
Speaker 1: David Marinus. David wrote a biography of Jim Thorpe called
Speaker 1: Path lit by Lightning, which is one English translation of
Speaker 1: Jim's birth name Wathaux Hawk. That name was given to
Speaker 1: him because when he was born it was said that
Speaker 1: lightning struck the ground outside. What do you think of this? Site.
Speaker 9: I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, I think
Speaker 9: it's a beautiful little place. It's a nice granite tombstone,
Speaker 9: really beautiful sculptures.
Speaker 1: Does his being here make some sort of sad sense?
Speaker 9: Sure, I mean, dislocation is part of the story of
Speaker 9: Native Americans, so it has a certain sick logic to it,
Speaker 9: I guess. But the most spiritual sense would be that
Speaker 9: he's buried where he started, along the North Canadian River
Speaker 9: in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: That's where Jim was born in May of eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: seven on the Sack and Fox Reservation in what was
Speaker 1: then Oklahoma Indian Territory. Jim was Sack and Fox Indian
Speaker 1: on his father's side, Potawatammee and French and Irish on
Speaker 1: his mother's side. As a boy, his mother told him
Speaker 1: he was the reincarnation of the great Sack and Fox
Speaker 1: warrior Blackhawk. His father was known as an Indian cowboy.
Speaker 1: He had five wives and eighteen kids. What is his
Speaker 1: outdoor life like growing up?
Speaker 9: Well, that really is Jim Thorpe enjoying life the most.
Speaker 9: He wasn't playing football or baseball yet. He was just
Speaker 9: hunting and fishing, mostly with his father and his father
Speaker 9: was kind of a oh never do ill might be
Speaker 9: too strong, but you know, he sold bootleg liquor from
Speaker 9: the back of a wagon. But he was also, Jim
Speaker 9: would say, the strongest person he ever knew. And Jim
Speaker 9: would tell a story about going hunting with his dad
Speaker 9: when Jim was maybe nine or ten years old, walking
Speaker 9: twenty miles, his father shot a couple of deer, put
Speaker 9: one on each shoulder, and walked them back all the
Speaker 9: way back home. That was his dad.
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted hearing that.
Speaker 10: I can imagine my grandfather wanting to be something like
Speaker 10: his father, maybe having a farm or even handling horses,
Speaker 10: fishing and running and jumping, and mostly spending time outdoors
Speaker 10: and not inside.
Speaker 1: That's Jim Thorpe's granddaughter, Anita Thorpe. Anita grew up in
Speaker 1: the same part of Oklahoma. She believes that her grandfather's
Speaker 1: connection to the land he was raised in was key
Speaker 1: to his success.
Speaker 10: He was able to visualize something, and he got that
Speaker 10: at an early age from watching horses and watching animals
Speaker 10: and hunting. Visualization is key to his story.
Speaker 1: But while Jim's boyhood may have been happy, loss was
Speaker 1: a part of his story from the beginning, starting with
Speaker 1: his twin brother, Charlie.
Speaker 9: Most people don't know Jim had a twin who died
Speaker 9: when they were nine years old when a disease swept
Speaker 9: through the Second Fox School.
Speaker 1: When Jim was fourteen, his mother died after burying her
Speaker 1: eleventh child. When he was sixteen, his father died, most
Speaker 1: likely from poison from a snake bite. By that time,
Speaker 1: Jim had been sent east to the Carlisle Indian Industrial
Speaker 1: School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And if you're thinking that this
Speaker 1: is why he was buried in Pennsylvania, Nope, Carlisle is
Speaker 1: over one hundred miles from Jim's final resting place. Now,
Speaker 1: Carlisle was the flagship of what were a series of
Speaker 1: US government run Indian boarding schools. This Indian boarding school system,
Speaker 1: what was that?
Speaker 9: I mean, it was partly a scam, partly matter of
Speaker 9: forced assimilation. Once the students got there, many of them
Speaker 9: were not kept there, but sent to farms in the
Speaker 9: area to work as basically indentured servants.
Speaker 1: The students came from eighty eight different tribes, but you
Speaker 1: wouldn't know it once they were enrolled at Carlisle.
Speaker 9: If they had long hair, their locks were shorn. They
Speaker 9: were not allowed to speak their native languages or practice
Speaker 9: their native religions.
Speaker 1: The school's motto killed the Indian, save the man. In fact,
Speaker 1: at least one hundred and eighty six of the students
Speaker 1: sent to Carlisle died there, buried in a cemetery behind
Speaker 1: the athletic grandstands. And how were these kids dying?
Speaker 9: They were dying from all kinds of diseases, some that
Speaker 9: were alien to their homelands. Of all the places I
Speaker 9: went for this book, the most visually haunting was to
Speaker 9: go to that cemetery and see row after row of
Speaker 9: gravestones of young Native Americans who went there and never
Speaker 9: got home.
Speaker 1: But while these schools were abhorrent in many ways, the
Speaker 1: effects on students' lives were more complex. Some graduates went
Speaker 1: on to become prominent doctors, lawyers, writers, and activists. Now,
Speaker 1: when Jim showed up at Carlisle, he wasn't exactly imposing
Speaker 1: at age sixteen, just five feet five inches tall and
Speaker 1: weighed one hundred and fifteen pounds. Three years later he'd
Speaker 1: grown to five nine one sixty. It was then, while
Speaker 1: walking across campus one day, that he was discovered.
Speaker 9: It sounds like a myth, but everything I can determine
Speaker 9: is that has really happened. He's working at the school
Speaker 9: in his overalls, a woolen shirt, and he walks through
Speaker 9: the athletic field. See some guys at the high joke
Speaker 9: pit trying to clear the bar. They're failing. In his
Speaker 9: work clothes. He easily clears the bar, you know, and
Speaker 9: the word gets to the coach and he's on the
Speaker 9: track team, and pretty soon he's on the football team,
Speaker 9: and his rise to athletic brilliance starts there.
Speaker 1: Here's Jim Thorpe himself describing that.
Speaker 6: Day I entered, cry why Poplomer having the horse me
Speaker 6: jumping over the high boy at five to seven or
Speaker 6: eight inches where the members couldn't do it now?
Speaker 1: In that sound by Jim mentions a name that looms
Speaker 1: large in his story, Pop Warner. Glenn pop Warner coached
Speaker 1: track and field at Carlyle. He was also the head
Speaker 1: football coach, and this is no exaggeration. In innovator of
Speaker 1: the sport itself.
Speaker 9: He was involved in everything about modern football.
Speaker 1: He introduced the three point stance, you know, that crouch
Speaker 1: thing they do at the start of a play with
Speaker 1: one hand touching the ground, and Pop Warner was one
Speaker 1: of the first coaches to experiment with the spiral pass,
Speaker 1: something I am determined to achieve before I leave this earth.
Speaker 1: Of course, it helped that his team, the Carlyle Indians,
Speaker 1: were fast, fearless, and every bit as creative as their coach,
Speaker 1: as Pulitzer Prize winning sportswriter Sally Jenkins wrote in her
Speaker 1: own history of the team, before Carlyle, football was a
Speaker 1: dull and brutal game, wedges of men pushing one another
Speaker 1: around in the dirt. Under Warner, the Indians found new
Speaker 1: ways to win, and they transformed the game into the thrilling,
Speaker 1: high speed chase it is now. But what about Pop
Speaker 1: Warner as a person, Well, that was a bit more complicated.
Speaker 1: He was kind of shady, betting on games, selling complimentary
Speaker 1: tickets in the lobby of hotels, and keeping the proceeds
Speaker 1: for himself. And he would ultimately abandon Jim Thorpe at
Speaker 1: his time of greatest need, but that was years away.
Speaker 1: In his first season with the team, Jim seized national attention, running, catching, throwing,
Speaker 1: and kicking. He did it all and with a kind
Speaker 1: of ease. Sportswriter Grant blund Rice would later write that
Speaker 1: Jim moved like the breeze off the field. Jim was
Speaker 1: equally charismatic, with a wide open face that pulled you in.
Speaker 1: When he smiled, he grinned so hard his his eyes
Speaker 1: would close. You'd feel that warmth and magnetism. One of
Speaker 1: his relatives said, he didn't have to talk, you'd feel it.
Speaker 1: Alas Jim starred him at Carlisle didn't translate into money,
Speaker 1: and so Jim left the school to play semi pro
Speaker 1: baseball in North Carolina, making about thirty dollars a month.
Speaker 9: Scores, if not hundreds of college athletes were going to
Speaker 9: play baseball in the summer. Most of them were playing
Speaker 9: under aliases. There were so many aliases in the league
Speaker 9: Jim played in the Eastern Carolina League that they called
Speaker 9: it the Pocahonnest League because everybody was named John Smith.
Speaker 1: Most collegiate athletes played under fake names since their schools
Speaker 1: prohibited them from playing pro sports, but Jim didn't play
Speaker 1: under an alias.
Speaker 9: He played under the name Jim Before. He didn't know
Speaker 9: that he was doing anything wrong, so he wasn't trying
Speaker 9: to hide what he was doing.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Pop warn and his Carlisle football team were hurting
Speaker 1: without Thorpe.
Speaker 9: Warner wrote him a letter saying, if you come back,
Speaker 9: you can train for the nineteen twelve Olympics while you're here,
Speaker 9: and so all of that prompted Thorpe to come back.
Speaker 9: If he hadn't, we wouldn't even know who he was.
Speaker 9: He would not be a name today.
Speaker 1: On the other side of the break, Jim Thorpe makes history.
Speaker 9: I call nineteen twelve the greatest single year any athlete
Speaker 9: has ever had.
Speaker 6: You folks want to Egypt bit of order.
Speaker 1: That's the voice of Abel Kiveat. In nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: he took a CBS news crew to his favorite diner
Speaker 1: in his New Jersey community.
Speaker 6: It's a fish sandwich. I've what kind, how, when and why?
Speaker 6: I don't know What's a little schmeer on it.
Speaker 5: It's a.
Speaker 7: Could they know you pretty well?
Speaker 10: Here?
Speaker 6: Huh? Don't ask the questions while I got the fisherman
Speaker 6: mouth might take a bite of me.
Speaker 1: But CBS wasn't there just to get tips from Abel
Speaker 1: on where to eat. Seventy years before this interview, Abel
Speaker 1: was a celebrated middle distance runner, a medalist at the
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, where he was
Speaker 1: the roommate of Jim Thorpe.
Speaker 6: I roomed with him, the best natured guy in or
Speaker 6: where he was so nice, so pleasant, big overgrown country
Speaker 6: kid in a way. But Hutton's seventy five a hot
Speaker 6: and eighty script five foot eleven in a fraction, and
Speaker 6: they said he had a neck of nineteen quarter inches
Speaker 6: like a wrestler, and he walked that way just out.
Speaker 6: I think the Thorpe was the greatest athlete that ever lived.
Speaker 6: There isn't anything he couldn't do. When he had to
Speaker 6: see someone do something, he'd hesitate, look and it almost
Speaker 6: duplicates almost instantly.
Speaker 1: It's true. Jim could observe others doing something, then visualize
Speaker 1: himself doing it, and then do it, a psychological approach
Speaker 1: that athletes today practice, except Jim Thorpe was doing it
Speaker 1: over one hundred years ago. In June of nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: Jim and the rest of the US Olympic team, including
Speaker 1: Pop Warner, who was coaching Jim, boarded the USS Finland
Speaker 1: in New York City for Sweden. The ship, which also
Speaker 1: served as their Olympic village, was reconfigured with a cork
Speaker 1: track so that the athletes could train on the way.
Speaker 1: Over Weight throwers would throw the discus off the ship.
Speaker 1: It was tied to a rope and pulled back each time.
Speaker 1: It was Jim's first time on an ocean liner. We
Speaker 1: don't know if he was nervous, but it's worth noting
Speaker 1: this was only two months after the Titanic went down.
Speaker 1: We know what the Olympics mean today, they're the Olympic.
Speaker 1: What did they mean in nineteen twelve.
Speaker 9: I would say that the nineteen twelve Olympics in Stockholm
Speaker 9: were the first sort of world Olympics.
Speaker 1: That's biographer David Marinis. Again.
Speaker 9: It was called the Sunshine Games. Everything just sort of
Speaker 9: clicked in those Olympics.
Speaker 1: Footage of the opening ceremonies exists, and it just looks
Speaker 1: so grand.
Speaker 9: It was really glorious. I mean, you had all these
Speaker 9: men in top hats and waistcoats, and women with fancy
Speaker 9: dresses and hats, and these boy scouts with their big
Speaker 9: old hats, and you just feel the excitement of that
Speaker 9: moment coming into the stadium.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to see this through his eyes. I mean,
Speaker 1: was that like going to another planet?
Speaker 9: Definitely going to another planet. The people in Europe sort
Speaker 9: of romanticized Native Americans. They'd never seen one. So there's
Speaker 9: this scene where Jim is out in the practice field
Speaker 9: and three Swedish girls come by, and you know, he
Speaker 9: doesn't quite look like their stereotype of an Indian, so
Speaker 9: he pretends he is one. You know, he does some
Speaker 9: war whoops and it scares the heck out of you know,
Speaker 9: just to play into that sort of stereotype.
Speaker 1: A couple of fun facts. The Swedish smorgasborge was introduced
Speaker 1: to America by the nineteen twelve Games, and these same
Speaker 1: games were the last when the gold medals were solid gold.
Speaker 1: Jim won the first of his two golds in the Pentathlon.
Speaker 1: Then came the ten events of the Decathlon, which was
Speaker 1: held over three days. It was on day two, when
Speaker 1: it came time for the high jump that any doubts
Speaker 1: about Jim Thorpe's greatness were silenced.
Speaker 8: He was going out to participate, started looking for a
Speaker 8: hue and couldn't find him.
Speaker 1: That's Jim Thorpe's son, Bill Thorpe, in an interview from
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen.
Speaker 8: So he started looking around and asking questions. People just said, oh,
Speaker 8: we don't know. We don't know.
Speaker 9: Earlier that day his shoes went missing, kind of a crisis.
Speaker 9: So he and Pop Warner I think they found one
Speaker 9: shoe in a trash can and another shoe somewhere else.
Speaker 9: There were different sizes. He had to wear, you know,
Speaker 9: two pairs of socks on one foot, you know, to
Speaker 9: make them work. And he still won the high jump.
Speaker 1: To be clear, Jim Thorpe won the high jump wearing
Speaker 1: two random mismatched shoes. There's a picture of him just
Speaker 1: standing there like, Yeah, what's the big deal, I'm wearing
Speaker 1: shoes I pulled out of a trash can five minutes
Speaker 1: before the competition. Big whoop. Now, while Jim and his
Speaker 1: teammates were playing to win, they were also young guys
Speaker 1: in a foreign country. They were going to have some fun. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Jim liked to wrestle when he drank. According to one account,
Speaker 1: Jim was ordinarily a quiet guy. Once he had a few,
Speaker 1: couldn't get him to shut up. By the end of
Speaker 1: day three of the decathlon, Jim Thorpe hadn't just won gold.
Speaker 1: He done so by almost seven hundred points, an astonishing margin.
Speaker 1: Sweden's King Gustav the fifth awarded Jim his two gold medals,
Speaker 1: along with two magnificent trophies, a three foot tall bronze
Speaker 1: bust that took two attendants to carry, and a thirty
Speaker 1: pound silver replica of a Viking ship. And can I
Speaker 1: just say, even if you don't like the idea of royalty,
Speaker 1: they definitely make a medal ceremony even more exciting. Here's
Speaker 1: a reporter John Erling speaking with Jim's son, Bill Thorpe.
Speaker 10: Again.
Speaker 4: He received his from the Swedish King Gustav. Several sources
Speaker 4: recount that when awarding the prize, King Gustav said, you, sir,
Speaker 4: are the greatest athletes in the world.
Speaker 8: That's what I understand that he said.
Speaker 4: To which your father said.
Speaker 8: Thanks King.
Speaker 1: What are you say?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean an Indian that came from an Indian school,
Speaker 8: and that would just be his way of it and
Speaker 8: their way.
Speaker 1: But that story, says David Marinus, was invented by the press.
Speaker 9: Thanks King, which is a great lie. But he didn't
Speaker 9: say it. He said thank you. But you know that
Speaker 9: was supposed to be you know, the good old country
Speaker 9: boy who didn't care about anybody's royalty, and that was
Speaker 9: part of the press mythology about the sort of the
Speaker 9: ignorant Indian in a sense.
Speaker 1: Throughout his life, the press depicted Jim Thorpe in a
Speaker 1: way that was simultaneously sympathetic and belittling.
Speaker 9: It's the stereotype that starts with a noble savage and
Speaker 9: then continues into the notion of this person that we're
Speaker 9: going to romanticize, but he's not really one of us,
Speaker 9: so we're going to diminish him at the same time.
Speaker 1: After the Olympics, Jim returned to the US a hero.
Speaker 9: He becomes a globally famous figure, the most well known
Speaker 9: athlete from America around the world. I mean, the whole
Speaker 9: team was created in New York City. Everybody else there
Speaker 9: were tudo a car. Thorpe was the only one in
Speaker 9: his car and it was the first car, you know,
Speaker 9: going through the confetti of Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 1: So he's indisputably the star, is the star of the Games.
Speaker 1: In Philadelphia, his trophies were on display at the famed
Speaker 1: Wannamaker's department store. And then Jim made a triumphant return
Speaker 1: to Carlisle. The kids must have gone nuts when he
Speaker 1: came back.
Speaker 9: They did. There was a huge celebration and that's where
Speaker 9: President Taff sent a telegram congratulating him for being an
Speaker 9: honorable American citizen, not knowing that he wasn't even one.
Speaker 1: That's right, Jim Thorpe, the American hero of the nineteen
Speaker 1: twelve Olympics, wasn't an American citizen. It wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty four all Native Americans were granted citizenship. This was
Speaker 1: a divisive issue. Many Native Americans were understandably concerned that
Speaker 1: they'd lose even more autonomy pledging allegiance to the United States.
Speaker 1: But Jim did want citizenship rights, and he'd finally be
Speaker 1: granted them after the Games in nineteen sixteen. Now, for
Speaker 1: mere mortals, winning gold at the Olympics would be enough
Speaker 1: for one year, but Jim Thorpe was no mere mortal.
Speaker 9: I call nineteen twelve the greatest single year any athlete
Speaker 9: has ever had. Not only does he win two gold
Speaker 9: medals in Stockholm, but then comes back and has a
Speaker 9: brilliant final year of football at Carlisle with one game
Speaker 9: that I call the greatest act of athletic retribution in
Speaker 9: American history, which is the game against Army at West Point.
Speaker 1: Now, why this is so fraud this game.
Speaker 9: Well, it's the me against the Indians on a level
Speaker 9: playing field at last. You know, most football games, it's
Speaker 9: just football. This one had a larger resonance to it.
Speaker 1: The Carlisle players were well aware that only twenty two
Speaker 1: years had passed since the massacre at Wounded Knee, when
Speaker 1: three hundred Lakota men, women, and children were slaughtered by
Speaker 1: the US Army, effectively marking the end of Indian resistance.
Speaker 1: This season, both football teams were formidable. Carlisle had its
Speaker 1: most talented team in the school's history with Jim at
Speaker 1: running back.
Speaker 9: Army had a good team. They had a sophomore running back,
Speaker 9: linebacker Dwight Eisenhower.
Speaker 1: Yes, that Dwight Eisenhower, the future Supreme Allied Commander and
Speaker 1: thirty fourth President of the United States. Omar Bradley, another
Speaker 1: future World War Two hero, sat on the bench. Eisenhower
Speaker 1: would later back in awe at Jim and we.
Speaker 2: Buying just without the side of his bawn.
Speaker 10: It the football on, you take it out sixty yards
Speaker 10: to punt.
Speaker 1: That's from an interview Eisenhower did years later. And it's
Speaker 1: true Jim could punt more than sixty yards in normal
Speaker 1: weather conditions. Ninety five yards if the winds were right,
Speaker 1: we where's.
Speaker 6: By this man?
Speaker 11: Feed and they which you got.
Speaker 1: Last Ike understood that if Army didn't take down Thorpe,
Speaker 1: they might as well wave the white flag.
Speaker 9: They said, we're gonna knock Thorpe out of the game,
Speaker 9: hit him high and low at the same time, and
Speaker 9: knock him out. In the third quarter, they eventually were
Speaker 9: able to make that kind of tackle, and he was
Speaker 9: on the ground groggy for a minute or so, but
Speaker 9: he got up and soon thereafter knocked Eisenhower out of
Speaker 9: the game. The Carlisle Indians clabbered Army twenty seven to six.
Speaker 9: It was an unforgettable movement.
Speaker 1: They could defeat the Axis Powers, but they couldn't defeat
Speaker 1: Jim Thorpe, fan Carlyle.
Speaker 9: It's a good way to put it. Book.
Speaker 1: As if that weren't enough, Jim won the Intercollegiate Ballroom
Speaker 1: Dancing Championship that year. He would have crushed Dancing with
Speaker 1: the Stars. Nineteen twelve had been a year of victories
Speaker 1: for Jim Thorpe. Nineteen thirteen began very differently. In late January,
Speaker 1: the Worcester Telegram newspaper reported that Jim Thorpe had played
Speaker 1: minor league baseball in North Carolina back in nineteen oh
Speaker 1: nine and nineteen ten. Now, remember how we said hundreds
Speaker 1: of other college athletes had done the same. Incidentally, they
Speaker 1: included Dwight D. Eisenhower. But the disclosure that Olympic hero
Speaker 1: Jim Thorpe had played semi pro Bowl quickly blew up
Speaker 1: into a major story. Back then, Olympic athletes were required
Speaker 1: to be amateurs.
Speaker 9: Amateurism was basically an idea foisted upon athletes by wealthy
Speaker 9: aristocrats in Europe who developed this noble sense of the
Speaker 9: purity of sports, and then it became part of the
Speaker 9: Olympic spirit and system that this would prevail.
Speaker 1: But says David Maronis, it was an unrealistic ideal.
Speaker 9: Most athletes come out of the working class and money,
Speaker 9: you know, That's how they've survives through their athletic talents.
Speaker 9: So it was a conflict between those two.
Speaker 1: Things and it was unevenly enforced.
Speaker 9: The entire Swedish team was given a leave of absence
Speaker 9: from their jobs for six months before the Olympics at
Speaker 9: fau pay. Were they professionals or amateur Jim Thorpe played
Speaker 9: baseball for about a dollar a day in a sport
Speaker 9: that had nothing to do with any of his events,
Speaker 9: and yet he was the one who suffered because of this.
Speaker 9: There were so many hpocrisies involved in this.
Speaker 1: Now, the press and the public were largely on Jim's side,
Speaker 1: after all, he brought home gold for Team USA, the
Speaker 1: second place finishers in the pentathlon and to Catalon. Both
Speaker 1: Scandinavians were on his side too, But the US and
Speaker 1: International Olympic committees were less forgiving, and so Jim turned
Speaker 1: to his coach Pop Warner, who knew full well that
Speaker 1: Jim had played semi pro ball.
Speaker 9: The most damning thing about Pop Warner was that at
Speaker 9: the moment of Jim Thorpe's crisis, after he'd won his
Speaker 9: gold medals, when because it was revealed that he'd played
Speaker 9: minor league baseball in North Carolina for two years, Pop
Speaker 9: Warner lied and said he knew nothing about it to
Speaker 9: save his own reputation.
Speaker 1: Instead, Pop Warner ghost wrote the letter that Jim Thorpe
Speaker 1: sent to the Amateur Athletic Union, portraying Thorpe as an
Speaker 1: ignorant Indian who didn't know better and accepting blame. Jim
Speaker 1: Thorpe was stripped of his medals. His name raced from
Speaker 1: the record books the medals and trophies sent back. But
Speaker 1: if Jim was bitter about it, it didn't show. As
Speaker 1: he would throughout his life, he would just keep moving forward,
Speaker 1: pushing against gale force headwinds. It helped that he had
Speaker 1: just married his Carlyle sweetheart, Iva Margaret Miller, and they
Speaker 1: would soon welcome their first child, Jim Junior. Jim would
Speaker 1: later write about this period quote, while my castle fell
Speaker 1: around me, the American people, the student body of Carlyle,
Speaker 1: and my girl Iva remained loyal. I adopted a fantastic
Speaker 1: viewpoint and considered the episode just another event in the
Speaker 1: Red Man's life of ups and downs.
Speaker 11: In the NNY All the President the United States.
Speaker 1: In July nineteen thirty two, over one hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: packed LA's Memorial Colisseum to watch one of the nation's
Speaker 1: most highly regarded Native Americans preside over the opening of
Speaker 1: that city's first Olympic Games.
Speaker 2: I have to play open.
Speaker 11: The Olympic Games of Los Angeles, celebrating that tenth Olympian
Speaker 11: on the monern area.
Speaker 1: No, that's not the voice of Jim Thorpe. That was
Speaker 1: Herbert Hoover's vice president, Charles Curtis, a member of the
Speaker 1: kaw Nation and the first person of color to serve
Speaker 1: as vice president. Jim Thorpe, the hero of the nineteen
Speaker 1: twelve Games, wasn't even invited to attend these Games. In fact,
Speaker 1: Jim was living in Los Angeles. When Vice President Curtis,
Speaker 1: who had worshiped Thorpe, read in the Los Angeles Times
Speaker 1: that Jim had been shut out, he arranged for passes
Speaker 1: to be sent to him. When Jim got those passes,
Speaker 1: he remarked, it had to be another Indian who finally
Speaker 1: got me the invitation. The last twenty years had been
Speaker 1: turbulent for Jim Thorpe. In nineteen eighteen, at the age
Speaker 1: of three, Jim Thorpe Junior had died during the influenza pandemic.
Speaker 1: The most precious trophy I had ever been awarded in
Speaker 1: my life had been taken from me, Jim later said.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty five, Jim's wife, Iva, filed for divorce,
Speaker 1: claiming desertion. It was hard to blame her. Jim was
Speaker 1: almost constantly on the road, and he was drinking heavily.
Speaker 1: He would marry two more times and have eight children total,
Speaker 1: but he was mostly an absentee father.
Speaker 9: Over the course of the final thirty years of his life,
Speaker 9: he just kept moving. He lived in twenty different states,
Speaker 9: most of the time out in California.
Speaker 1: When asked why he kept moving, he explained, a man
Speaker 1: has to keep hustling when he has a family and
Speaker 1: hustle he did. Within two years of his medals being
Speaker 1: stripped from him, Jim Thorpe was playing both pro baseball
Speaker 1: and pro football. He was named president of the organization
Speaker 1: that would become the NFL. For a time, he even
Speaker 1: played pro basketball. And here's something that surprised me even more.
Speaker 1: For two seasons, Jim coached and played for an all
Speaker 1: Native American football team called the Ourang Indians. Urang was
Speaker 1: the name of the Ohio dog kennel that sponsored the team.
Speaker 1: To draw in the crowds, the team would perform between halves,
Speaker 1: showing off the kennel's airedales, performing ward dances, Jim would
Speaker 1: wow spectators with his still spectacular dropkick. Now get this,
Speaker 1: That show is generally considered the origin of today's NFL
Speaker 1: halftime show. By the late nineteen twenties, age was taking
Speaker 1: its toll on Jim he played his last football game
Speaker 1: at forty one. When he was forty six, he played
Speaker 1: his last baseball game. To make ends meet, Jim had
Speaker 1: taken jobs as a security guard and bouncer, and by
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one he was digging ditches for the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Public Works Department, working for four dollars a day.
Speaker 1: But Los Angeles was also a new beginning for Jim Thorpe.
Speaker 1: He'd gone there to pursue a career in Hollywood, but
Speaker 1: he visualized a better future in the industry for all
Speaker 1: Native Americans.
Speaker 9: And there's another period out there where I sort of
Speaker 9: see him finding himself and his meaning.
Speaker 1: That's biographer David Marinis.
Speaker 6: Again.
Speaker 9: He became the leader of the two hundred or so
Speaker 9: Native Americans who were on the fringes of the studio
Speaker 9: industry in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Jim co founded the Native American Actors Guild. Native Americans
Speaker 1: were barred from joining the Screen Actors Guild.
Speaker 9: You know, all of these Native Americans out there. Basically,
Speaker 9: he was saying, you've got all these Westerns going on,
Speaker 9: and you're hiring white guys and putting the war paint
Speaker 9: on them higher us. You know, we're the real thing.
Speaker 1: Those Indian actors began calling Jim Akapamata caregiver in his
Speaker 1: sack and fox language. The big surprise is how many
Speaker 1: movies Jim himself ended up in.
Speaker 9: He was in more than seventy movies. He acted with
Speaker 9: every famous actor you can imagine of that era.
Speaker 1: He's an extra I think in King Kong he's extra Kink.
Speaker 1: He mostly played bit roles if he talked at all,
Speaker 1: and usually as an Indian warrior. But in some movies,
Speaker 1: like the nineteen thirty two comedic short Always Kicking, he
Speaker 1: played himself and he was a highlight.
Speaker 6: I remember boys the art of draft kicking, to always
Speaker 6: keep your eye on the ball and never look up
Speaker 6: until the ball is in flag. All right, ken.
Speaker 1: But the film Jim Thorpe is best remembered for was
Speaker 1: the one about him.
Speaker 2: Jim Thorpe, All American, The Man of Bronze, who became
Speaker 2: the greatest athlete of all time, an Oklahoma Indian lad
Speaker 2: who was on tame spirit gave wings to his feet
Speaker 2: and carried him to immortality.
Speaker 1: Jim Thorpe, All American, the movie with Bert Lancaster for
Speaker 1: its time, just to place it in its time. What
Speaker 1: do you think of the movie.
Speaker 9: The movie is sympathetic to Jim Thorpe. It stars Burt Lancaster,
Speaker 9: who is a great actor and a big star.
Speaker 3: There's one thing that really gets at sports. Do you
Speaker 3: think a man can make a future out of them?
Speaker 9: You know, he was thirty seven when he played Thorpe,
Speaker 9: but he had a training as an athlete and even
Speaker 9: as an acrobat. In most respects the fact that he
Speaker 9: wasn't a Native American. Other than that, he was not
Speaker 9: a bad choice.
Speaker 1: And the director was Michael Curtiz, who years before had
Speaker 1: directed Casablanca.
Speaker 9: It was a big deal in the star actor and
Speaker 9: the director and the sympathy. But it's wrong in almost
Speaker 9: every respect. You know, it's wrong in little ways where
Speaker 9: the first scene you see Jim Thorpe running away from
Speaker 9: school going back home in the home has a tpe
Speaker 9: and the second fox didn't live in tpees. And then
Speaker 9: in the background you see the San Gabriel Monsa, California.
Speaker 9: You know, so that's are sort of little ways and
Speaker 9: it's off. But what if I'm The most disturbing was
Speaker 9: that the narrator of the film, and in some respects,
Speaker 9: the hero is not Jim Thorpe. It's Pop Warner.
Speaker 1: Here's the Pop Warner character defending Jim for playing semi
Speaker 1: pro baseball, something that certainly didn't happen in real life.
Speaker 3: I just want to say, gentlemen, an ignorance sometimes is
Speaker 3: an excuse. All boys at colin I'll come to us
Speaker 3: from the reservation. The government pays their expenses at school.
Speaker 3: That doesn't make the professionals in the summer. When the
Speaker 3: government stops paying their expenses, they have to win. They
Speaker 3: keep somehow.
Speaker 1: Yes, the man who had sold Jim out in his
Speaker 1: time of greatest need was presented on film as standing
Speaker 1: up for Jim. The movie was yet another disappointment to Jim.
Speaker 1: He'd turned over the rights to his life story and
Speaker 1: made less than fifteen hundred dollars the same year the
Speaker 1: film was released. In nineteen fifty one, Jim was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with cancer. He seemed to beat it, but that wasn't
Speaker 1: the end of his problems. Jim and his third wife, Patsy,
Speaker 1: were broke living in a trailer in Lomita, California. On
Speaker 1: March twenty eighth, nineteen fifty three, Jim Thorpe suffered a
Speaker 1: heart attack while fishing at the Redondo Pier in California.
Speaker 1: He died later that day, destitute. He was sixty four.
Speaker 1: Only three years earlier, a poll of four hundred sports
Speaker 1: writers had voted Jim Thorpe the number one athlete of
Speaker 1: the first half of the twentieth century. Which brings us
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of our episode and how Jim
Speaker 1: Thorpe ended up where he is today.
Speaker 9: He had told his sons that he wanted to be
Speaker 9: buried in his homeland in a woman in Second Fox.
Speaker 1: Territory, and it looked like that would happen. But Jim's widow, Patsy,
Speaker 1: who was not Native American, had other ideas.
Speaker 9: It was in the middle of a Second Fox ceremony
Speaker 9: on land not far from where he grew up that
Speaker 9: she came in with a couple of tufts and took
Speaker 9: him away because she was unhappy with how the Oklahoma
Speaker 9: government was treating him and whether there would be enough
Speaker 9: of a celebration, a mausoleum and a museum honoring him.
Speaker 1: Looking for a resting place for Jim's body, Patsy went
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia to meet with a then NFL commissioner, and
Speaker 1: here's where things get really weird.
Speaker 9: She's there in a hotel room watching television one night
Speaker 9: and sees this story about these two down on their
Speaker 9: luck coal towns up near the Poconos, mock Chunk and
Speaker 9: East mock Chunk, were trying to figure out a way
Speaker 9: to survive after the coal industry had died and tourism
Speaker 9: had vanished. And it's called the Switzerland of America, and
Speaker 9: it looks beautiful, and she comes up with this plan.
Speaker 1: Patsy contacted the editor of the local mock Chunk Times
Speaker 1: and pitched him an idea to save the town.
Speaker 9: You'll get Jim Thorpe's body if you merge these two
Speaker 9: little burrows into one town, renamed them Jim Thorpe. And
Speaker 9: maybe we'll get a Jim Thorpe hospital, and I'll even
Speaker 9: build a tepee hotel up here, and maybe the NFL
Speaker 9: they'll set up the Hall of Fame in Jim Thorpe.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, when his body is brought here,
Speaker 1: that is the very first time that Jim Thorpe comes
Speaker 1: to this town.
Speaker 9: He had never set foot in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania before
Speaker 9: it became Jim Thorpe Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: The plan was put to a vote and it passed.
Speaker 1: Jim Thorpe Pennsylvania was born, and Jim Thorpe the man
Speaker 1: was buried there. That's for the Hall of Fame, hospital
Speaker 1: and TP hotel. None of that happened. Most of Jim's
Speaker 1: family was outraged that he was buried in a town
Speaker 1: he never lived in, and a suit to return his
Speaker 1: body to Oklahoma was filed. It went all the way
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, which ultimately refused to hear the case.
Speaker 1: This really caused a rift in the family. I mean
Speaker 1: so much pain and estrangement.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yes, I mean it's what divided us, and we've
Speaker 10: been two separate families ever since.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety six, Jim's granddaughter, Anita Thorpe, took a
Speaker 1: road trip with her father, Jim's son Richard. Their first
Speaker 1: stop the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, where
Speaker 1: Jim Thorpe had been inducted its very first year.
Speaker 10: I remember going into the Football Hall of Fame and
Speaker 10: my dad was he was really enjoying hisself.
Speaker 1: And then they drove on to Jim Thorpe Pennsylvania. It
Speaker 1: was the first time either of them would see where
Speaker 1: Jim was buried.
Speaker 10: And then we were at the mausoleum and my father's.
Speaker 10: His whole demeanor changed from I'm having a really good time,
Speaker 10: you know, I'm living this, having a time in my
Speaker 10: life visiting these places, to a depression. A dark cloud
Speaker 10: came over him, almost in an instant.
Speaker 1: Today, Richard Thorpe and all the rest of Jim Thorpe's
Speaker 1: children are gone, and Anita Thorpe thinks it's time for
Speaker 1: the newer generations to move on. Are you now getting
Speaker 1: to know cousins that you were estranged from?
Speaker 10: Yes, you know, I hate to say, but it really
Speaker 10: took all the children, you know, those that were fighting
Speaker 10: to pass for the grandchildren to come and say, well,
Speaker 10: let's do things together.
Speaker 1: Jim Thorpe's remains may never be restored to sac and
Speaker 1: fox Land, but Jim Thorpe's Olympic leg has been restored.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, one hundred and ten years after
Speaker 1: his humiliation, Jim Thorpe's name was officially reinstated as the
Speaker 1: sole winner of the gold medals in the nineteen twelve
Speaker 1: pentathlon and decathlon. That same year, Anita Thorpe delivered remarks
Speaker 1: at the National Archives in Washington, DC. She spoke about
Speaker 1: how her grandfather's story wasn't a tragedy. Instead, she told
Speaker 1: this story illustrating how his extraordinary journey was an everyday
Speaker 1: source of inspiration.
Speaker 10: Welcome everybody. I'm Anita Thorpe. I'm Jim Thorpe's granddaughter. I'm
Speaker 10: going to tell a little story about my trip to Washington,
Speaker 10: d C. This is my second time here. My first
Speaker 10: trip was here in September. Everybody kept saying, take the metro,
Speaker 10: That's how you get around this place. But I was
Speaker 10: scared to death to get on the metro. And so
Speaker 10: I leave the Hilton and I go downstairs, and I
Speaker 10: was afraid to death, you know. I was afraid that
Speaker 10: I was going to get on the wrong train and
Speaker 10: never make it back. So I stepped aboard the train.
Speaker 10: I sit down, And as soon as I sat down,
Speaker 10: I thought about my granddad, and I thought about the
Speaker 10: courage it took for each and every endeavor that he took,
Speaker 10: going to the Olympics, being a star athlete at Carlisle,
Speaker 10: being the first president of what is today the NFL.
Speaker 10: And you heard the term doors open and close. One
Speaker 10: door open, one door closes. And so while I was
Speaker 10: riding that train today, I thought of my grandfather's courage
Speaker 10: And if I could leave one bit of thing or
Speaker 10: inspiration for Jim Thorb for young and old, is you know,
Speaker 10: for everybody to have that courage in your life when
Speaker 10: you're stepping on the platform to someplace unknown.
Speaker 7: That's what my grandfather had throughout his life, was the
Speaker 7: courage to step up on the platform for whatever event
Speaker 7: it was in the strength. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary. May I ask
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Speaker 1: Great Lives Worth Reliving the New York Times best selling
Speaker 1: book now available in paperback and audiobook. It includes plenty
Speaker 1: of stories not in the podcast. This episode of Mobituaries
Speaker 1: was produced by Liz Sanchez. Our team of producers also
Speaker 1: includes Chloe Choball, Young Kim and Me Moroka, with engineering
Speaker 1: by Josh Han. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart.
Speaker 1: Our archivel producer is Jamie Benson. Fact checking from Amy Cronenberg.
Speaker 1: Mobituary's production company is Neon Hum Media. Indispensable support from
Speaker 1: Alan Pang and everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Steve Razis, Rand Morrison, Michah Carlson, Alberto Robina and
Speaker 1: Francisco Robina. Also to the voices of Oklahoma and I'm
Speaker 1: a Sportsfile dot Com for archival tape. David Marinus's book
Speaker 1: Path Lit by Lightning the Life of Jim Thorpe is
Speaker 1: published by Simon and Schuster, which, like CBS, is part
Speaker 1: of Paramount Global. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Megan Marcus,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Hirsch, and Morocca. The series is created by Yours
Speaker 1: Truly