58 Fun Facts About Jim Thorpe

Jim Thorpe was a citizen of which Native American nation?

Sac and Fox is the nation Thorpe belonged to through his father Hiram, whose people had been moved from the Great Lakes region to Indian Territory in the 19th century.

At which Olympic Games did Thorpe win his two gold medals?

1912 Stockholm, the fifth modern Olympiad, saw Thorpe win two multi-event titles in the same week; Sweden's new Olympic Stadium was built for those Games.

In which two events did Thorpe win Olympic gold?

Pentathlon and decathlon were his titles, won by wide margins; he also finished fourth in the high jump and seventh in the long jump at the same Games.

Why was Thorpe stripped of his Olympic titles in 1913?

He had been paid to play semi-professional baseball, earning as little as two dollars a game in the Eastern Carolina League in 1909 and 1910, which broke the amateur rules of the day.

In which year did the IOC present replica gold medals to Thorpe's children?

In January 1983 the IOC presented replica medals to two of his children, after its October 1982 ruling that the 1913 disqualification had come long after the 30-day protest window.

In 2022 the IOC changed Thorpe's status in its records from what to what?

From co-champion to sole champion: in July 2022 the IOC restored Thorpe as the outright 1912 winner of both events, with the heirs of the two runners-up and their national committees agreeing.

Thorpe was born in Indian Territory, in what is now which US state?

Oklahoma, then Indian Territory, was his birthplace, near the town of Prague; no birth certificate has ever been found, and even the date is disputed between May 22 and May 28, 1887.

Thorpe's Sauk name, Wa-Tho-Huk, is usually translated as what?

Bright Path is the usual rendering of Wa-Tho-Huk; the fuller meaning is 'the bright path the lightning makes as it goes across the sky', tied to a storm at his birth.

What happened to Thorpe's twin brother Charlie?

He died of pneumonia at age nine, in 1897, when both twins were at the tribal agency boarding school; Jim ran away from school several times afterwards.

Which school did Thorpe enter in 1904, where his athletic talent was discovered?

Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the federal boarding school in Pennsylvania, took him in 1904; his father had earlier sent him to Haskell in Kansas to stop him running away.

Who coached Thorpe at Carlisle?

Pop Warner, born Glenn Scobey Warner, coached Carlisle and was reluctant to risk his best track athlete in football until Thorpe ran through the whole defence twice in practice.

How did Thorpe first catch attention at Carlisle in 1907?

He beat the high jumpers in street clothes: passing the track in 1907, he cleared 5 ft 9 in on a whim, a school record, and was put on the team.

Besides football and track, Thorpe won a 1912 intercollegiate championship in which unlikely activity?

Ballroom dancing was his 1912 intercollegiate title; at Carlisle he also played lacrosse, tennis, handball and baseball and boxed.

In 1911 Thorpe kicked all four field goals in Carlisle's 18-15 upset of which powerhouse?

Harvard did not lose another game until 1915; Carlisle finished 11-1.

Which future US president played against Thorpe in Carlisle's 1912 win over Army?

Dwight D. Eisenhower, then an Army halfback, recalled that Thorpe "never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw".

What did Thorpe do right after a penalty erased his 92-yard touchdown against Army in 1912?

Ran 97 yards for a touchdown on the very next snap, by the famous account of the game Carlisle won 27-6 at West Point on November 9, 1912.

Which poet taught Thorpe at Carlisle and recalled his "ease in his gait"?

Marianne Moore taught commercial subjects at Carlisle from 1911 to 1915; she wrote that in the football lineup he was "the epitome of concentration".

The 1912 Olympic pentathlon consisted of long jump, javelin, discus, a 200 m sprint and which fifth event?

1500 m run closed the competition, and Thorpe won it; he took four of the five events and was third in the javelin, which he had first thrown only that year.

Which future IOC president was Thorpe's teammate in the 1912 multi-event competitions?

Avery Brundage, sixth in the 1912 pentathlon and a decathlon dropout, became IOC president in 1952 and rebuffed attempts to reinstate Thorpe, saying "Ignorance is no excuse."

Which Swedish local favourite did Thorpe beat by 688 points in the decathlon?

Hugo Wieslander, runner-up with 7,724 points to Thorpe's 8,412, always maintained that Thorpe was the rightful winner of the decathlon.

Thorpe's decathlon score of 8,413 points remained an Olympic record for how long?

Nearly two decades passed before Jim Bausch bettered the mark at the 1932 Los Angeles Games; it was Thorpe's first decathlon, and he placed in the top four in all ten events.

What footwear did Thorpe wear to win the decathlon after his own shoes were stolen?

A mismatched pair, one from a trash can, is what the famous photo shows: a teammate lent one shoe, the other was a discard, and extra socks made the larger one fit.

Which monarch reportedly told Thorpe, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world"?

King Gustav V of Sweden spoke the words at the medal ceremony; Thorpe's famous reply, "Thanks, King", is probably a later embellishment.

The challenge prize for Thorpe's pentathlon win had been donated by which ruler?

Czar Nicholas II of Russia gave the pentathlon challenge prize, a silver chalice shaped like a Viking ship; the Swedish king's trophy, a bronze bust of himself, went with the decathlon.

On his return from Stockholm, Thorpe was the star of what kind of New York celebration?

A ticker-tape parade up Broadway greeted the returning US Olympic team in August 1912; Thorpe said, "I couldn't realize how one fellow could have so many friends."

Weeks after the Olympics, Thorpe broke Martin Sheridan's record to win which title at Celtic Park in New York?

AAU All-Around Championship, a ten-event contest decided in a single day, fell to Thorpe with a record 7,476 points; Martin Sheridan, whose mark he broke, called him "the greatest athlete that ever lived".

For which minor-league town had Thorpe played semi-pro baseball in 1909 and 1910?

Rocky Mount, North Carolina, a Class D club in the Eastern Carolina League, had him as a pitcher and infielder in 1909 and 1910, and he played under his own name.

Which newspaper first reported in January 1913 that Thorpe had been paid to play baseball?

The Worcester Telegram, a Massachusetts daily, broke the story on 22 January 1913; the AAU's secretary James E. Sullivan pursued the case hard even though the public did not much care.

In his letter to the AAU, Thorpe explained he was "simply an Indian schoolboy" who did what?

Did not know that he was doing wrong, he wrote, adding that he had done what several other college men had done, except that they had not used their own names.

With which Major League Baseball team did Thorpe sign in 1913?

New York Giants, the reigning National League champions under John McGraw, signed him in February 1913, though he saw little playing time; the last-place St. Louis Browns had also courted him.

On the Giants-White Sox world tour after the 1913 season, Thorpe met which pope?

Pius X received the touring Giants and White Sox in Rome in February 1914; on the same trip Thorpe met the Khedive of Egypt and played before King George V in London.

Thorpe drove in the winning run in the famous 1917 "double no-hitter" between the Reds' Fred Toney and which Cubs pitcher?

Hippo Vaughn of the Cubs and Fred Toney of the Reds both held no-hitters through nine innings on 2 May 1917; Thorpe's tenth-inning swinging bunt drove in Larry Kopf for the only run.

What was Thorpe's career major-league batting average?

.252 was his average over 289 games between 1913 and 1919, with 7 home runs, 91 runs scored and 82 driven in.

Which Ohio football team signed Thorpe in 1915 at a then-enormous wage per game?

Canton Bulldogs signed him in 1915 to outdraw the rival Massillon Tigers; attendance jumped from about 1,200 to 8,000 for his debut against them.

Thorpe reportedly ended the 1919 championship game with a wind-assisted punt of how many yards?

95 yards, from his own 5-yard line with the wind behind him, is the reported length of the punt that put the 1919 championship game out of reach.

Thorpe was nominally the first president of which organisation, formed in 1920?

American Professional Football Association was founded in Canton in September 1920 with Thorpe as its figurehead president; Joseph Carr replaced him in 1921, and it became the NFL in 1922.

Thorpe organised and played for which all-Native American NFL team in 1922 and 1923?

Oorang Indians, based in La Rue, Ohio, were sponsored by Walter Lingo's Oorang dog kennels; they went 3-6 in 1922 and 1-10 in 1923, though Thorpe made the 1923 All-NFL team.

At what age did Thorpe retire from professional football?

41 was his age when he played his last NFL game for the Chicago Cardinals in 1928, after 52 league games for six teams since 1920.

How did biographers learn in 2005 that Thorpe had also played professional basketball?

A ticket was found in an old book in 2005, revealing that he had barnstormed with 'Jim Thorpe and His World Famous Indians' of La Rue in the late 1920s.

Which sport did Thorpe briefly consider playing professionally in Toronto in 1913?

Hockey was the offer: the Tecumseh Hockey Club of Toronto, of the National Hockey Association, courted him in 1913, but he chose baseball instead.

How much did Thorpe get for selling the film rights to his life story to MGM in 1931?

1,500 dollars was all MGM paid in 1931 for the rights to his life story; Warner Bros. later made the 1951 film and paid him a reported 15,000 dollars.

Who played Thorpe in the 1951 biopic Jim Thorpe – All-American?

Burt Lancaster, then 37, played Thorpe under director Michael Curtiz; in Britain the Warner Bros. film was called Man of Bronze.

In his Depression-era film work, Thorpe mostly played what kind of role?

American Indians in Westerns were his usual parts, mostly uncredited bit roles, in around 70 films between 1931 and 1950, and he campaigned for Native actors to be hired for such roles.

When Thorpe was hospitalised for lip cancer in 1950, how was he admitted?

As a charity case, because the family had no money: his wife Patricia told the press, "We're broke ... Jim has nothing but his name and his memories."

In 1950 an Associated Press poll of sportswriters named Thorpe the greatest athlete of what?

The first half of the 20th century was the span of the 1950 AP poll, which Thorpe won by a wide margin; in 1999 the AP placed him third for the whole century, behind Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan.

Thorpe was in the inaugural class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in which year?

1963 was the year the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton with a charter class of 17, Thorpe among them; a larger-than-life statue of him stands in the rotunda.

The town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, was formed by the merger of which two towns after they acquired his remains?

Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, rival boroughs on the Lehigh, merged in 1954 after Thorpe's widow Patricia agreed to bring his remains to a town he had never visited.

Under which federal law did Thorpe's sons sue in 2010 to have his body returned to his tribal homeland?

NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, was the basis of the suit; the Third Circuit ruled in 2014 that the borough was not a "museum" under it, and the Supreme Court declined the case.

The Jim Thorpe Award, given since 1986, honours the best college player at which position?

Defensive back is the position the Jim Thorpe Award has honoured since 1986, with Thomas Everett of Baylor its first winner; a US-Germany decathlon match, the Thorpe Cup, is also named for him.

Which honour did President Biden announce for Thorpe in 2024?

Presidential Medal of Freedom, the top US civilian honour, was awarded posthumously at the White House in May 2024, with his family accepting; he had already appeared on the 2018 Native American dollar coin.

How much per game did his new Ohio football team pay Thorpe in 1915?

$250 a game was the 1915 fee, at a time when most players earned well under $100 a game; the club's investment paid off in Ohio League titles in 1916, 1917 and 1919.

How many times did Thorpe marry, fathering eight children in total?

Three marriages: Iva Miller in 1913, Freeda Kirkpatrick in 1926 and Patricia Askew in 1945; the first two produced four children each.

Thorpe's mother Charlotte Vieux was descended from a chief of which nation?

Citizen Potawatomi is the nation of her ancestor Louis Vieux, a chief and trader; Charlotte Vieux was of Potawatomi and French descent, and Thorpe was raised Catholic through her.

In which California city did Thorpe suffer the fatal cardiac arrest in March 1953?

Lomita, in Los Angeles County, is where he died on 28 March 1953 in the trailer home he shared with his wife Patricia; he was briefly revived after collapsing at dinner but died aged 65.

In its 1982 reinstatement, the IOC named Thorpe joint pentathlon champion with which athlete?

Ferdinand Bie, the Norwegian who had been moved up to pentathlon gold in 1913, shared the title in the 1982 ruling; he too had said Thorpe was the only true champion.

Which president proclaimed April 16 as 'Jim Thorpe Day' by Senate joint resolution?

Richard Nixon issued the proclamation in 1973, authorised by Senate Joint Resolution 73, to promote national recognition of Thorpe's life twenty years after his death.

Which branch of service did Thorpe briefly join in 1945 during World War II?

The Merchant Marine took him on in 1945 as a carpenter aboard the ammunition ship Southwest Victory, a brief wartime stint alongside jobs as a bouncer, security guard and ditchdigger.

In the 2000 ABC Sports fan poll, Thorpe was voted greatest athlete of the century over how many others?

15 other finalists, among them Muhammad Ali, Pelé, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens and Michael Jordan, lost to Thorpe in the ABC Sports Athlete of the Century fan vote announced in 2000.