Happy Birthday to Native American multi-sport athlete and gold medallist Jim Thorpe (b. May 28, 1887, in Indian Territory, OK), who for a time was indisputably the greatest athlete in the world. The breadth of his athletic achievements is reflected in many of the reminiscences about his life associating him with completely different sports. His Olympic golds in pentathlon and decathlon embody his multi-sport talents. As do his remarkable professional accomplishments across professional football, professional baseball, and professional basketball. It is important to acknowledge that the U.S. government weaponized these particular sports as tools of acculturation. When Thorpe was sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which is more accurately described as a state incarceration facility, this is where he excelled at football in particular. That Thorpe became spectacular at these sports does not make any less true that they were used in an attempt to forcibly remove his own culture and identity from his life.
Recommended reading to learn more:
Citations: Robert W. Wheeler, Jim Thorpe: World’s Greatest Athlete (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979 [1975]), 235-281, https://archive.org/details/jimthorpeworldsg0000robe; David Maraniss, Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022), 2, Kindle edition; Underwood & Underwood, “Jim Thorpe,” photograph (Prague, OK, c. 1913), collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C.), public domain, https://www.si.edu/object/jim-thorpe:npg_NPG.80.327.
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