You, sir, are the best athlete in the world - Native Americans were America's first homeowners. But over time, they became strangers in their own home. 'The world's best athlete' Jim Thorpe is also among those exposed to this approach.
In the United States of America in the early 1900s, indigenous people, in other words, Indians, were among the leading others... Jim Thorpe, the 'best athlete in the world', was one of those who paid this price heavily. The distance between the life this versatile athlete, who won two golds at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, lived and what he deserved was the embodiment of the difference between XXX and the other.
Bright Path (Wa-Tho-Huk). At the beginning of everything, that's all it seemed. According to the traditions of the Sac and Fox Nation, a Native American tribe living in Oklahoma, the newborn baby was named after the first image the mother saw at that moment. One of the twins, who was born in Prague in May 1887, was named Bright Path after the sunlight hitting the path of the hut where the birth took place. Jim Thorpe, as he was registered, and his twin, Charlie, were growing up fishing, swimming, playing games, and helping with some daily chores on the horse farm where their father worked. They also attended Native school together in Oklahoma.
James Francis Thorpe (May 22 or 28, 1887 – March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics (one in classic pentathlon and the other in decathlon). He also played football (collegiate and professional), professional baseball, and basketball.
The first shadow fell on the bright road in 1896. Pneumonia had ended Charlie's story prematurely, and Jim was now on his own. The school he barely attended had become a nightmare for him. When he started running away frequently, his father sent him to Kansas, to a boarding school for Native Americans. Here he met American football and quickly excelled with his skills. He started to organize his matches with a ball that a teammate made for him by covering pieces of rug with leather strips as a gift. He was often the youngest player on the field.
In those days, he received news that his father had been shot while hunting and was about to die. He was 12 years old when he set out to walk approximately 450 kilometers.
When he reached the farm after a two-week journey, he found his father healed. But a few months later, bad news came from his mother. It was time to return. He was enrolled in a nearby school but never managed to become a bright student. The situation was different with after-school baseball games and farm work. At only 15 years old, Jim Thorpe could understand the language of even the wildest horse and could saddle and ride it.
He went to Pennsylvania at the age of 16 and enrolled at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, famous for its football team. Here he worked with Pop Warner, one of the most successful football coaches in history. Although he couldn't play in the university team with his height of 1.65 and weight of 52 kilos at that time, it was obvious that he was a good player. He was just getting used to his new life when he received the news of his father's death. Once again, he left school and returned to the farm and worked there. His second visit to Carlisle would be the turning point of his life.
According to legend, the university team was practicing high jump, but no one was able to overcome the 1 meter 75 centimeter high bar. Thorpe, who watched the work, asked permission to try it. Even though he was wearing casual clothes and trying this for the first time in his life, he exceeded the bar. The next day, Pop was called into the room by Warner.
Do you know what you're doing?
I hope it's not something bad.
Bad... Son, you broke the school record!
After this initial leap, Thorpe would reach the highest goal, Olympic gold, within five years. It started with being recruited to the school team. Warner, who assigned the star of the football team, Albert Exendine, to coach him, left his student's request to play baseball unanswered because the matches coincided with the athletics season. However, Thorpe preferred baseball and football to track and field. He managed to impress his coach with his performance in a football training he attended towards the end of the same year. Although he made the team, he spent his first two seasons as an ordinary player.
1908 was the Olympic year. That summer, Thorpe attended the Olympic qualifiers, remembering his talent in the high jump. The result was negative. He was left out in trials where two of his Carlisle teammates were successful. When he returned to school after a summer spent with his family in Oklahoma, those who saw him felt the need to turn around and take another look. At 21, Thorpe had made great physical progress. He was now over 1.80 tall and his body was equally strong. Moreover, he added new talents to his football.
He started his third season at Carlisle with a bang. He soon gained a fan base. This was followed by team captaincy. Seasons come one after another; Thorpe played basketball when the football season ended, continued athletics in between, and took part in many sports such as baseball, tennis, swimming, wrestling, and lacrosse when he had the opportunity. Since that day he had set his mind on having a professional sports career, the closest thing to him was baseball, the only professional sport recognized in the USA. At the bottom of this sports pyramid was athletics, to which Warner said, "What's the point of trying so hard; it's an empty sport." The first sport that attracted nationwide attention was football. He almost single-handedly made his team champion in the 1911 season, where he played in many different positions. That year, he was named All-American—given to the best athletes in the United States in college sports.
There was someone on the ship to Stockholm who chose to sleep while the American athletes were training. When Mike Murphy, one of the athletic trainers, insisted that the athlete he found in the hammock work out, he would get the following answer from his student with his eyes closed: "I'm just trying to visualize how high I will jump."
Before the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, two new branches emerged. Decathlon and pentathlon, which combine different disciplines in a single branch, attracted the attention of Jim Thorpe, who could be successful in almost all branches of sports without any training. He participated in the Olympic trials held in New York in May. He had only demonstrated his prowess in three disciplines before the committee sent him home because 'there was nothing left to try'.
The Indian athlete was going to the Olympics with that ship, representing the USA in a total of four branches, including the long jump and the high jump. Of course, the fact that his relationship with most of the disciplines in pentathlon and decathlon dates back a maximum of two months could not hinder him. When he won the gold medal in both branches, it was not even possible to talk about a competition. He finished top in four of the five competitions in the pentathlon. Just as he won four out of ten events in the decathlon, he did not finish worse than fourth in any of the races in which 29 athletes participated. At the medal ceremony, the famous dialogue that is remembered in every Olympics and forms the source of the title received by decathlon champions took place. King Gustav of Sweden addressed him as he handed him his medal: "You, sir, are the best athlete in the world." Thorpe's response was clear: "Thank you, King."
After returning from the Olympics, Jim Thorpe was put in the back of a convertible and taken around Broadway. Thousands of people were shouting his name. A letter soon reached the Olympic hero, who said, "I didn't know a person could have so many friends." In the letter signed by the President of the United States, William Howard Taft, it was written that the success of the Native American athlete symbolized an exemplary American citizen. However, there was a situation that the president was unaware of. Thorpe, like the Sac and other Indians of the Fox Nation, was not a full citizen. While the newspapers were writing 'noble savage' news combining fact and fiction, he simply could not even vote for the author of the letter he received. While this ironic situation continued with Thorpe's Olympic return, with 25 touchdowns on behalf of the Carlisle football team and being selected as an All-American once again with 198 points in total, the days when the 'light path' would soon turn dark were apparent.
In January 1913, a writer for the Worcester Telegram wrote in his column that Jim Thorpe was playing professional baseball. Other newspapers were quick to follow up on the incident. This claim was not a lie, but it was incomplete. It was already a known fact in North Carolina that the Olympic champion athlete played baseball. Almost all athletes of the period, including other Olympic champions, took part in professional sports, but they used pseudonyms to avoid losing their amateur status. In 1909, when the incident took place, Thorpe, who did not even know English properly, was in the field with the name Indian because he was directed to do so. The reason behind this was the public interest in Indian athletes at that time. While Wa-Tho-Huk was playing for two dollars per game in North Carolina, his coach Pop Warner was earning 200 thousand dollars a year from the Native American athletes he sent from the West.
When the incident came to light, the strange tangle of relationships in the summer baseball league became the national news. Jim Thorpe was just one example, there were hundreds like him, but the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) needed a scapegoat to shut down this incident before it got any bigger. This name was, as expected, Thorpe. A confession letter was prepared for him and sent to AAU. The committee, which canceled the athlete's amateur status, also made the same request from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). What about the public reaction? For a local, of course, it was negligible. Even the obligation to make objections within a month, following the Olympic rules of the period, did not change anything, and ultimately his medals and prizes of around 50 thousand dollars were taken back from Thorpe.
The situation he was exposed to was not enough to curb the champion athlete's success in sports. It could even be said that it helped him in a way. Starting to receive offers from professional baseball teams, Thorpe added football to this sport and continued his career by playing baseball in some seasons and football in others from 1913 to 1929. Not only did he play both sports at the highest level, but he was also the most important name in popularizing American football and the American football team - which would later become the NFL.
He became the first president of the Professional Football Federation. On the field, he was the first great football star. While the matches were watched by an average of 1200 people when he was not playing, 8 to 10 thousand spectators flocked to the matches when he was present.
Thorpe's merits in football were also similar to athletics. There were always players who hit the ball almost as well, who defended as well, who were as fast or as strong. But no one could come close to doing all of these titles at that level. It seemed like there was nothing this natural talent couldn't do in the sports arena. Former world heavyweight boxing champion Max Baer once suggested he become a boxer. He believed that Jim would become a champion. If he could make a place in the mixed fixtures, it would probably be possible... Even at ballroom dancing, he was the best.
However, this extraordinary sports career was not followed by a successful business life. In 1929, when Jim Thorpe retired from the sport, one of the most difficult periods in US history was at hand. The Great Depression, known for bread lines, soup kitchens, and indescribable poverty, was quick to show its effects. The lucky ones could find jobs for three dollars a day. Thorpe couldn't find it. Sometime after he disappeared, a sportswriter came across him while he was refereeing a couples' dance marathon in Los Angeles (a trend at the time that involved couples dancing until they collapsed from exhaustion). The main reason behind the Olympic champion's arrival to the city was the hope of finding a role in films. A crazy interest in cowboys and Indians arose in Hollywood, which turned to sexuality and violence to survive during the Depression. However after a while he found the chance he was looking for; As a shy person who didn't like to talk much, Thorpe was never a good actor. He only played poor roles. He was either drunk, wild, or homeless. He was always an extra who was shot early.
These were fair roles to be given to him in proportion to his ability. But injustice was permeating Thorpe's life, this time in a different guise. While a regular extra earned $15, this amount was halved for Indians. While the stamp for falling off a horse was 150 dollars, the fee for locals was only 25 dollars. The end that awaited the once-heroic athlete who struggled for this was no surprise; his career is over. Then he became a spokesman. He went and gave speeches all over the country; He fought for Native American tribes to take back their lands; He fought for the revenues of olive oil produced in the Sac and Fox region; He spoke in theaters, churches, and auditoriums. Sometimes as a former Olympic champion and a healthy man, sometimes as a conscious Indian, about the struggle of an oppressed people to exist in the white world...
Twenty years after the Olympics in which he won two golds, the 1932 Olympic Games were held in California, where Jim Thorpe lived, but there was no one inviting him nor did he have the money to buy tickets. As this situation spread from word to word, protest letters began to pour in from all over the USA to the AAU and newspapers began to make news about the issue. Thousands of Americans volunteered to cover Thorpe's ticket. One of them was Vice President Charles Curtis, who spent part of his childhood with Native Americans. The former Olympic champion received a standing ovation from 105 thousand spectators the day he sat in the presidential box. After the Olympics, he continued to be an Indian trying to make a living.
Shortly before this troubled life ended in 1953, Thorpe was named the best athlete of the first half of the century by Associated Press writers. He was awarded many honors, including being inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. After his death, the district where he was buried near Carlisle was named after him, and his medals were finally returned by the IOC in 1982.
Jim Thorpe said the following in a speech when he was a spokesman for the Native Americans: "I have never forgotten that I am a native. No native can forget that. We settled in this country long before the first white man to reach these shores, but we became the executors of this state. We helped the natives shed their inferiority complex and achieve normalcy." "They should be allowed to live like citizens."
Unfortunately, he never found this opportunity. He could neither enjoy equal conditions with an ordinary citizen nor get back the Olympic medals he wanted back all his life. But, like most people or societies where being the 'other' is deemed appropriate, he benefited from history's habit of restoring dignity. No matter what anyone does, no power can prevent this. That's good to know at least.
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Who Was Jim Thorpe, Native American Athlete And Olympian?
https://www.theadvancenews.com/2021/08/04/who-was-jim-thorpe-native-american-athlete-and-olympian/