WEBVTT - Jim Thorpe: Death of an All-American 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:08.840 There are so many ways we can memorialize the greats. 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:11.040 Welcome to the Jim Twlly Tour. 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.520 Certainly a special tour today. 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.840 All right, we're gonna roll over the Lehigh now beautiful. 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:24.160 There are murals, TV specials, parades, even podcasts. 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.120 Of that incline is where they would drag the empty 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:27.640 coal cars and then leaves. 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.800 But naming a town after someone, that's next level. 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.080 Well, there's a Jim Thorpe neighborhood bank, there's Jim Thorpe trolley. 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.520 There's a Jim Thorpe inn And we're standing in front 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:40.120 of the field for which high school? 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:41.960 Jim Thorpe Perry High School. 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:44.440 And the name of the team is the Jim Thorpe Olympians. 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:51.360 That's Michael J. Sofranco. He's the mayor of jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Yes, 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.520 the town is named for the legendary Native American athlete 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:01.280 and hero of the nineteen twelve Stockholm, Sweden Olympics, Jim Thorpe. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.959 And yes, I know that Pennsylvanians call their towns burrows, 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.960 and that their state is not a state, it's a commonwealth. 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.720 In nineteen seventy we go somewhere and they'd say where 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:12.880 you're from, and I'd say Jim Thorpe. They'd say, I 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:14.520 don't want your name, I want to know where you live. 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.039 It's a beautiful town, nestled in a valley of the 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:24.240 Pocono Mountains and nicknamed the Switzerland of America, and it's 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.199 graced with more than just Jim Thorpe's name. 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.600 I think that there's one thing you can say having 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.480 Jim Thorpe's body here, it has brought a community together. 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.840 That's right on the east side of town. Thorpe is 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:43.480 buried in a red granite mausoleum emblazoned with images of 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.280 his spectacular triumph at the Olympics. It was a high 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.560 point for Thorpe, as he'd later. 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.680 Recall Mann, the greatest athlete of the world, but a 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.840 kiss Layton, I think is one of my great moments 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:56.520 in my life. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:01.760 The Hillside memorial draws fans still in awe of Thorpe's achievements, 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.320 not just in track and field, but also in baseball 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:06.160 and football. 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.200 I'm an old football fan, and my dad loved Jim Thorpe. 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.120 He was the world's best athlete as far as I'm concerned. 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:17.280 He still is nothing. He couldn't do anything he could do. 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:18.600 Don't you wish you had? Those powers? 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:20.079 Are just some of them? 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.880 Now, if you're wondering what relationship Jim Thorpe, the man 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.560 has to the town named for him, you're not alone. 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.160 How many of you guys know how long Jim lived 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:30.760 in this town? 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:32.200 Never? 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:33.520 That's correct, Jim? 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:34.160 Yeah? 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:39.519 Really, he had never set foot in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.520 Did you know that he never actually set foot in 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:44.280 here before he was buried here? 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:44.840 Really? 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.440 You know, I thought that this was where he was from, 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.960 to be honest with you, went that's the history of it. Huh. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.680 That Jim Thorpe ended up in a town he never 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:58.240 lived in is only the final twist in a roller 0:02:58.280 --> 0:02:59.240 coaster life. 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.400 To me, he as a young person, he was like 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.919 a Hercules or even like a superman. 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.680 From becoming the world's first sports superstar. 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.799 No one has had that triad of being an All 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.880 American football player, a winner of the gold medal in 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.280 the decathlon and the pentathlon, and a Major League baseball player. 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.760 And he was great at ballroom dancing, lacrosse ross. People 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:25.919 said he was good at marbles. 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:26.760 Is it true? 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:27.200 Yes? 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:34.120 Just surviving modern sports. First scandal Jim thort an American Indian, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.960 the only winner of both Pentathlon and the Katla. 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.120 Later for playing semi pro baseball before the games. His 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.040 name is erased from the role of the victories. 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.840 To his surprise third act in Hollywood. 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.160 Jim Poor, All American, the main of Bronze who became 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.560 the greatest athlete of all time. It's Burt Lancaster as 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:55.600 Jim Port. 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:00.640 From CBS Sunday Morning and iHeart I'm Morocca. This is 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:12.880 mobituaries this moment Jim Thorpe, March twenty eighth, nineteen fifty three, 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:15.720 death of an All American. 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.680 While the rocks are from visitors, probably most of them 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:33.240 from Native people's totems and sort of symbols of respect 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.080 for Thorpe, the great one. 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:39.000 I'm standing in front of Jim Thorpe's mausoleum with historian 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:43.479 David Marinus. David wrote a biography of Jim Thorpe called 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.760 Path lit by Lightning, which is one English translation of 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:52.040 Jim's birth name Wathaux Hawk. That name was given to 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.520 him because when he was born it was said that 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:59.080 lightning struck the ground outside. What do you think of this? Site. 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.640 I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, I think 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.440 it's a beautiful little place. It's a nice granite tombstone, 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.120 really beautiful sculptures. 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.160 Does his being here make some sort of sad sense? 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.520 Sure, I mean, dislocation is part of the story of 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:19.640 Native Americans, so it has a certain sick logic to it, 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.640 I guess. But the most spiritual sense would be that 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.520 he's buried where he started, along the North Canadian River 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:28.520 in Oklahoma. 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.839 That's where Jim was born in May of eighteen eighty 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.680 seven on the Sack and Fox Reservation in what was 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:40.480 then Oklahoma Indian Territory. Jim was Sack and Fox Indian 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.279 on his father's side, Potawatammee and French and Irish on 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.599 his mother's side. As a boy, his mother told him 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.840 he was the reincarnation of the great Sack and Fox 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:55.640 warrior Blackhawk. His father was known as an Indian cowboy. 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.880 He had five wives and eighteen kids. What is his 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.320 outdoor life like growing up? 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.760 Well, that really is Jim Thorpe enjoying life the most. 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.920 He wasn't playing football or baseball yet. He was just 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.760 hunting and fishing, mostly with his father and his father 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.599 was kind of a oh never do ill might be 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.080 too strong, but you know, he sold bootleg liquor from 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.320 the back of a wagon. But he was also, Jim 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.920 would say, the strongest person he ever knew. And Jim 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.440 would tell a story about going hunting with his dad 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.400 when Jim was maybe nine or ten years old, walking 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.839 twenty miles, his father shot a couple of deer, put 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.000 one on each shoulder, and walked them back all the 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:41.960 way back home. That was his dad. 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:43.479 I'm exhausted hearing that. 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.599 I can imagine my grandfather wanting to be something like 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:57.440 his father, maybe having a farm or even handling horses, 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:02.960 fishing and running and jumping, and mostly spending time outdoors 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:04.839 and not inside. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.760 That's Jim Thorpe's granddaughter, Anita Thorpe. Anita grew up in 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.440 the same part of Oklahoma. She believes that her grandfather's 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.640 connection to the land he was raised in was key 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:17.600 to his success. 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.760 He was able to visualize something, and he got that 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:26.200 at an early age from watching horses and watching animals 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:32.160 and hunting. Visualization is key to his story. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.000 But while Jim's boyhood may have been happy, loss was 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.280 a part of his story from the beginning, starting with 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.160 his twin brother, Charlie. 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.880 Most people don't know Jim had a twin who died 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.200 when they were nine years old when a disease swept 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:48.880 through the Second Fox School. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.840 When Jim was fourteen, his mother died after burying her 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:57.360 eleventh child. When he was sixteen, his father died, most 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.960 likely from poison from a snake bite. By that time, 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:05.200 Jim had been sent east to the Carlisle Indian Industrial 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.760 School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And if you're thinking that this 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.760 is why he was buried in Pennsylvania, Nope, Carlisle is 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.960 over one hundred miles from Jim's final resting place. Now, 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.080 Carlisle was the flagship of what were a series of 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:26.160 US government run Indian boarding schools. This Indian boarding school system, 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:27.040 what was that? 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.520 I mean, it was partly a scam, partly matter of 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.400 forced assimilation. Once the students got there, many of them 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.120 were not kept there, but sent to farms in the 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.480 area to work as basically indentured servants. 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.719 The students came from eighty eight different tribes, but you 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.600 wouldn't know it once they were enrolled at Carlisle. 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.480 If they had long hair, their locks were shorn. They 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.240 were not allowed to speak their native languages or practice 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:56.560 their native religions. 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:03.000 The school's motto killed the Indian, save the man. In fact, 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.920 at least one hundred and eighty six of the students 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:10.559 sent to Carlisle died there, buried in a cemetery behind 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.200 the athletic grandstands. And how were these kids dying? 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:18.000 They were dying from all kinds of diseases, some that 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:22.360 were alien to their homelands. Of all the places I 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:26.920 went for this book, the most visually haunting was to 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.360 go to that cemetery and see row after row of 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.800 gravestones of young Native Americans who went there and never 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:35.680 got home. 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.160 But while these schools were abhorrent in many ways, the 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.959 effects on students' lives were more complex. Some graduates went 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:54.200 on to become prominent doctors, lawyers, writers, and activists. Now, 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.920 when Jim showed up at Carlisle, he wasn't exactly imposing 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:02.760 at age sixteen, just five feet five inches tall and 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.880 weighed one hundred and fifteen pounds. Three years later he'd 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.839 grown to five nine one sixty. It was then, while 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.360 walking across campus one day, that he was discovered. 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.400 It sounds like a myth, but everything I can determine 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:23.560 is that has really happened. He's working at the school 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.800 in his overalls, a woolen shirt, and he walks through 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.520 the athletic field. See some guys at the high joke 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.000 pit trying to clear the bar. They're failing. In his 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.600 work clothes. He easily clears the bar, you know, and 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:40.760 the word gets to the coach and he's on the 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:42.760 track team, and pretty soon he's on the football team, 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:46.120 and his rise to athletic brilliance starts there. 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:49.640 Here's Jim Thorpe himself describing that. 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.559 Day I entered, cry why Poplomer having the horse me 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:55.920 jumping over the high boy at five to seven or 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.000 eight inches where the members couldn't do it now? 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.480 In that sound by Jim mentions a name that looms 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:08.240 large in his story, Pop Warner. Glenn pop Warner coached 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.360 track and field at Carlyle. He was also the head 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.800 football coach, and this is no exaggeration. In innovator of 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:17.000 the sport itself. 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.120 He was involved in everything about modern football. 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.280 He introduced the three point stance, you know, that crouch 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:25.960 thing they do at the start of a play with 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.280 one hand touching the ground, and Pop Warner was one 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.640 of the first coaches to experiment with the spiral pass, 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.360 something I am determined to achieve before I leave this earth. 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.000 Of course, it helped that his team, the Carlyle Indians, 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.640 were fast, fearless, and every bit as creative as their coach, 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.040 as Pulitzer Prize winning sportswriter Sally Jenkins wrote in her 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:54.160 own history of the team, before Carlyle, football was a 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.320 dull and brutal game, wedges of men pushing one another 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:02.400 around in the dirt. Under Warner, the Indians found new 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.280 ways to win, and they transformed the game into the thrilling, 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.800 high speed chase it is now. But what about Pop 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:15.160 Warner as a person, Well, that was a bit more complicated. 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:21.000 He was kind of shady, betting on games, selling complimentary 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:24.119 tickets in the lobby of hotels, and keeping the proceeds 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:28.439 for himself. And he would ultimately abandon Jim Thorpe at 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.320 his time of greatest need, but that was years away. 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:39.760 In his first season with the team, Jim seized national attention, running, catching, throwing, 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.960 and kicking. He did it all and with a kind 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:47.280 of ease. Sportswriter Grant blund Rice would later write that 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:52.280 Jim moved like the breeze off the field. Jim was 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.600 equally charismatic, with a wide open face that pulled you in. 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.360 When he smiled, he grinned so hard his his eyes 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.760 would close. You'd feel that warmth and magnetism. One of 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.559 his relatives said, he didn't have to talk, you'd feel it. 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.400 Alas Jim starred him at Carlisle didn't translate into money, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.680 and so Jim left the school to play semi pro 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.600 baseball in North Carolina, making about thirty dollars a month. 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:27.280 Scores, if not hundreds of college athletes were going to 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.319 play baseball in the summer. Most of them were playing 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.240 under aliases. There were so many aliases in the league 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.640 Jim played in the Eastern Carolina League that they called 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.559 it the Pocahonnest League because everybody was named John Smith. 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.960 Most collegiate athletes played under fake names since their schools 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:48.200 prohibited them from playing pro sports, but Jim didn't play 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:49.720 under an alias. 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.640 He played under the name Jim Before. He didn't know 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.840 that he was doing anything wrong, so he wasn't trying 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:58.199 to hide what he was doing. 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.880 Meanwhile, Pop warn and his Carlisle football team were hurting 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:03.920 without Thorpe. 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.360 Warner wrote him a letter saying, if you come back, 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.760 you can train for the nineteen twelve Olympics while you're here, 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.600 and so all of that prompted Thorpe to come back. 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.440 If he hadn't, we wouldn't even know who he was. 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:17.920 He would not be a name today. 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:22.640 On the other side of the break, Jim Thorpe makes history. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:28.320 I call nineteen twelve the greatest single year any athlete 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:29.160 has ever had. 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:41.680 You folks want to Egypt bit of order. 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.200 That's the voice of Abel Kiveat. In nineteen eighty two, 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.400 he took a CBS news crew to his favorite diner 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.040 in his New Jersey community. 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.880 It's a fish sandwich. I've what kind, how, when and why? 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.200 I don't know What's a little schmeer on it. 0:14:59.200 --> 0:14:59.520 It's a. 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:02.280 Could they know you pretty well? 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:02.440 Here? 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.280 Huh? Don't ask the questions while I got the fisherman 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:06.680 mouth might take a bite of me. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.480 But CBS wasn't there just to get tips from Abel 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.800 on where to eat. Seventy years before this interview, Abel 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.680 was a celebrated middle distance runner, a medalist at the 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.960 nineteen twelve Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, where he was 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.200 the roommate of Jim Thorpe. 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.920 I roomed with him, the best natured guy in or 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:32.560 where he was so nice, so pleasant, big overgrown country 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.680 kid in a way. But Hutton's seventy five a hot 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:40.560 and eighty script five foot eleven in a fraction, and 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.360 they said he had a neck of nineteen quarter inches 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.640 like a wrestler, and he walked that way just out. 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.040 I think the Thorpe was the greatest athlete that ever lived. 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.200 There isn't anything he couldn't do. When he had to 0:15:54.240 --> 0:16:00.440 see someone do something, he'd hesitate, look and it almost 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.680 duplicates almost instantly. 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:08.120 It's true. Jim could observe others doing something, then visualize 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:12.280 himself doing it, and then do it, a psychological approach 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.280 that athletes today practice, except Jim Thorpe was doing it 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:21.840 over one hundred years ago. In June of nineteen twelve, 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.200 Jim and the rest of the US Olympic team, including 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:29.560 Pop Warner, who was coaching Jim, boarded the USS Finland 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:33.480 in New York City for Sweden. The ship, which also 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.280 served as their Olympic village, was reconfigured with a cork 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.080 track so that the athletes could train on the way. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.800 Over Weight throwers would throw the discus off the ship. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.720 It was tied to a rope and pulled back each time. 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.720 It was Jim's first time on an ocean liner. We 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.240 don't know if he was nervous, but it's worth noting 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.680 this was only two months after the Titanic went down. 0:16:57.600 --> 0:16:59.920 We know what the Olympics mean today, they're the Olympic. 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:02.400 What did they mean in nineteen twelve. 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.600 I would say that the nineteen twelve Olympics in Stockholm 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.919 were the first sort of world Olympics. 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.639 That's biographer David Marinis. Again. 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.240 It was called the Sunshine Games. Everything just sort of 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:16.560 clicked in those Olympics. 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:21.040 Footage of the opening ceremonies exists, and it just looks 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:22.440 so grand. 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.280 It was really glorious. I mean, you had all these 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:30.680 men in top hats and waistcoats, and women with fancy 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.320 dresses and hats, and these boy scouts with their big 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.720 old hats, and you just feel the excitement of that 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:39.800 moment coming into the stadium. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.480 I'm trying to see this through his eyes. I mean, 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:46.520 was that like going to another planet? 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:51.880 Definitely going to another planet. The people in Europe sort 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.760 of romanticized Native Americans. They'd never seen one. So there's 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.560 this scene where Jim is out in the practice field 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.719 and three Swedish girls come by, and you know, he 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:08.080 doesn't quite look like their stereotype of an Indian, so 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.760 he pretends he is one. You know, he does some 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.040 war whoops and it scares the heck out of you know, 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.000 just to play into that sort of stereotype. 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:21.240 A couple of fun facts. The Swedish smorgasborge was introduced 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.920 to America by the nineteen twelve Games, and these same 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:29.040 games were the last when the gold medals were solid gold. 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.040 Jim won the first of his two golds in the Pentathlon. 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.280 Then came the ten events of the Decathlon, which was 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.640 held over three days. It was on day two, when 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.359 it came time for the high jump that any doubts 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.040 about Jim Thorpe's greatness were silenced. 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.680 He was going out to participate, started looking for a 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:52.240 hue and couldn't find him. 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.200 That's Jim Thorpe's son, Bill Thorpe, in an interview from 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:57.120 twenty fifteen. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:02.440 So he started looking around and asking questions. People just said, oh, 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:03.600 we don't know. We don't know. 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:09.080 Earlier that day his shoes went missing, kind of a crisis. 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.320 So he and Pop Warner I think they found one 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.080 shoe in a trash can and another shoe somewhere else. 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.639 There were different sizes. He had to wear, you know, 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.199 two pairs of socks on one foot, you know, to 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.440 make them work. And he still won the high jump. 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.879 To be clear, Jim Thorpe won the high jump wearing 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.720 two random mismatched shoes. There's a picture of him just 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.880 standing there like, Yeah, what's the big deal, I'm wearing 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:38.800 shoes I pulled out of a trash can five minutes 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:44.320 before the competition. Big whoop. Now, while Jim and his 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.840 teammates were playing to win, they were also young guys 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.959 in a foreign country. They were going to have some fun. Apparently, 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.600 Jim liked to wrestle when he drank. According to one account, 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.440 Jim was ordinarily a quiet guy. Once he had a few, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.480 couldn't get him to shut up. By the end of 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.440 day three of the decathlon, Jim Thorpe hadn't just won gold. 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:11.400 He done so by almost seven hundred points, an astonishing margin. 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:17.520 Sweden's King Gustav the fifth awarded Jim his two gold medals, 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:22.360 along with two magnificent trophies, a three foot tall bronze 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.919 bust that took two attendants to carry, and a thirty 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.679 pound silver replica of a Viking ship. And can I 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.880 just say, even if you don't like the idea of royalty, 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:39.640 they definitely make a medal ceremony even more exciting. Here's 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.560 a reporter John Erling speaking with Jim's son, Bill Thorpe. 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:43.879 Again. 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:50.320 He received his from the Swedish King Gustav. Several sources 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:55.240 recount that when awarding the prize, King Gustav said, you, sir, 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.520 are the greatest athletes in the world. 0:20:57.760 --> 0:20:59.880 That's what I understand that he said. 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:01.399 To which your father said. 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:02.080 Thanks King. 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:05.600 What are you say? 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:10.400 Yeah, I mean an Indian that came from an Indian school, 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.119 and that would just be his way of it and 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:13.680 their way. 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:18.240 But that story, says David Marinus, was invented by the press. 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.680 Thanks King, which is a great lie. But he didn't 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.760 say it. He said thank you. But you know that 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:26.919 was supposed to be you know, the good old country 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:30.919 boy who didn't care about anybody's royalty, and that was 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.600 part of the press mythology about the sort of the 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:36.600 ignorant Indian in a sense. 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.679 Throughout his life, the press depicted Jim Thorpe in a 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.600 way that was simultaneously sympathetic and belittling. 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:48.080 It's the stereotype that starts with a noble savage and 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:52.920 then continues into the notion of this person that we're 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.360 going to romanticize, but he's not really one of us, 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:58.200 so we're going to diminish him at the same time. 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:03.119 After the Olympics, Jim returned to the US a hero. 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:09.720 He becomes a globally famous figure, the most well known 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.280 athlete from America around the world. I mean, the whole 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.879 team was created in New York City. Everybody else there 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:18.560 were tudo a car. Thorpe was the only one in 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:20.520 his car and it was the first car, you know, 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:23.160 going through the confetti of Fifth Avenue. 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:27.280 So he's indisputably the star, is the star of the Games. 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.320 In Philadelphia, his trophies were on display at the famed 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:36.280 Wannamaker's department store. And then Jim made a triumphant return 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.320 to Carlisle. The kids must have gone nuts when he 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:39.760 came back. 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.280 They did. There was a huge celebration and that's where 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:47.000 President Taff sent a telegram congratulating him for being an 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.159 honorable American citizen, not knowing that he wasn't even one. 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:54.200 That's right, Jim Thorpe, the American hero of the nineteen 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:59.080 twelve Olympics, wasn't an American citizen. It wasn't until nineteen 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:03.440 twenty four all Native Americans were granted citizenship. This was 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:07.840 a divisive issue. Many Native Americans were understandably concerned that 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:12.080 they'd lose even more autonomy pledging allegiance to the United States. 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.280 But Jim did want citizenship rights, and he'd finally be 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:20.240 granted them after the Games in nineteen sixteen. Now, for 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:23.520 mere mortals, winning gold at the Olympics would be enough 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:26.880 for one year, but Jim Thorpe was no mere mortal. 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:32.800 I call nineteen twelve the greatest single year any athlete 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:36.919 has ever had. Not only does he win two gold 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:40.679 medals in Stockholm, but then comes back and has a 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:46.439 brilliant final year of football at Carlisle with one game 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:49.879 that I call the greatest act of athletic retribution in 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:55.000 American history, which is the game against Army at West Point. 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:58.960 Now, why this is so fraud this game. 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:02.399 Well, it's the me against the Indians on a level 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:06.200