Jim Thorpe Trivia
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54 free Jim Thorpe trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jim Thorpe won Olympic gold in mismatched shoes fished out of a bin, played major-league baseball and professional football and basketball, was the first president of what became the NFL, and ended up buried in a Pennsylvania town he had never visited. This quiz covers the whole story: the Sac and Fox boyhood in Indian Territory, the twin brother who died, Carlisle Indian School and Pop Warner, the 1911 upset of Harvard and the 97-yard run against Army with Eisenhower on the field. Then Stockholm 1912: the pentathlon and decathlon, King Gustav's "greatest athlete in the world", the ticker-tape parade, and the semi-pro baseball summers in Rocky Mount that cost him his medals. It follows him through the New York Giants and the Canton Bulldogs, the Oorang Indians, the World Famous Indians basketball tour, the Depression-era bit parts in Westerns, the Burt Lancaster biopic, the 1983 replica medals, the 2022 restoration as sole champion, and the long legal fight over his remains. Easy questions ask which sports he played; the expert tier asks for points totals, opponents and dates. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on Jim Thorpe and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you like this, try our quizzes on the Olympics, the NFL and Native American history.
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Q 01Jim Thorpe was a citizen of which Native American nation?
Sac and Fox
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.
Q 02Which future Second World War general competed for the United States at the same 1912 Olympics as Thorpe?
George S. Patton
George S. Patton, then a young Army officer, placed fifth in a new five-sport military contest; he blamed his poor pistol score on bullets passing through holes his earlier shots had made.
Q 03Which position did Thorpe mainly play in his six seasons of major-league baseball?
Outfielder
Outfielder was his usual spot, though he spent much of his time on the bench; his best season at the plate was his last, in 1919.
Q 04Why was Thorpe stripped of his Olympic titles in 1913?
He was paid to play baseball
He was paid to play baseball in a minor league before the Games; other college men did the same under false names, as he pointed out in his plea, but he had used his own.
Q 05Why did the IOC rule in 1982 that Thorpe's 1913 disqualification was invalid?
The protest came months too late
The protest came months too late: the 1912 rules allowed 30 days to challenge a result, and the charge surfaced in January 1913, half a year after the Games; his children received replica medals in 1983.
Q 06In 2022 the IOC changed Thorpe's status in its records from what to what?
From co-champion to sole champion
From co-champion to sole champion: the IOC made the change in July 2022 once the national Olympic committees of both runners-up agreed, a gesture of fair play in its president's words.
Q 07Thorpe was born in Indian Territory, in what is now which US state?
Oklahoma
Oklahoma was still Indian Territory when Thorpe was born, two decades before statehood; no birth certificate survives, so accounts give both 1887 and 1888 as the year.
Q 08Thorpe's Sauk name, Wa-Tho-Huk, is usually translated as what?
Bright Path
Bright Path is the usual short form; the fuller sense, the path that lightning makes across the sky, gave David Maraniss the title of his 2022 biography, Path Lit by Lightning.
Q 09What happened to Thorpe's twin brother Charlie?
He died of pneumonia in childhood
He died of pneumonia in childhood, at eight or nine by different accounts; Jim then ran away from school so often that his father sent him to a boarding school in Kansas.
Q 10What did Thorpe do almost single-handedly in Carlisle's 1909 track meet against Lafayette?
Won six of the events
Won six of the events, from the hurdles to the shot put and discus; his coach routinely entered him in six or seven events a meet, which made him close to a one-man track team.
Q 11Who coached Thorpe at Carlisle?
Pop Warner
Pop Warner coached him in both football and track, and in 1911 talked him into returning to Carlisle after two years away, which set up his All-America seasons and the Olympics.
Q 12How did Thorpe first catch attention at Carlisle?
He beat the high jumpers in street clothes
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.
Q 13Besides football and track, Thorpe won a 1912 intercollegiate championship in which unlikely activity?
Ballroom dancing
Q 21Before his record-setting 1912 Olympic win, what was Thorpe's history in the decathlon?
He had never contested one
He had never contested one: the 1912 Olympic decathlon was the first and only one of his life, and he made the team without a trial, picked on the strength of his pentathlon form.
Q 22What was on Thorpe's feet when he won the 1912 decathlon?
A mismatched pair, one from a trash can
A mismatched pair, one from a trash can, is the usual telling of what he found when his own shoes vanished before the second day; either way he won two of that day's events in them.
Q 23Which monarch reportedly told Thorpe, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world"?
Ballroom dancing was his 1912 intercollegiate title; at Carlisle he also played lacrosse, tennis, handball and baseball and boxed.
Q 14In 1911 Thorpe kicked all four field goals in Carlisle's 18-15 upset of which powerhouse?
Harvard
Harvard fell 18-15 in its own stadium to Thorpe's four field goals, one of college football's great upsets; a week later Carlisle lost its only game of 1911, by a single point, to Syracuse.
Q 15Which future US president played football against Thorpe's Carlisle team in 1912?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower, an Army halfback, tried to tackle Thorpe that day; in 1961 he recalled him as a man who could do anything better than any other football player he ever saw.
Q 16What almost kept Thorpe from seeing the 1932 Olympics?
The price of a ticket
The price of a ticket was beyond him in the Depression, two decades after his own victories; once word got out, he was invited to watch as an official guest.
Q 17Which poet taught Thorpe at Carlisle and recalled his "ease in his gait"?
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore, then a young Bryn Mawr graduate, taught typing and bookkeeping at Carlisle; she remembered Thorpe in the football lineup as "the epitome of concentration".
Q 18The 1912 Olympic pentathlon consisted of long jump, javelin, discus, a 200 m sprint and which fifth event?
1500 m run
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.
Q 19Which of Thorpe's 1912 Olympic teammates later became president of the IOC?
Avery Brundage
Avery Brundage trailed far behind Thorpe in the pentathlon and failed to finish the decathlon; as IOC president from 1952 he blocked efforts to restore his old teammate's titles.
Q 20How did runner-up Hugo Wieslander regard the decathlon gold he was handed after Thorpe's disqualification?
As rightfully Thorpe's
As rightfully Thorpe's: Wieslander, beaten by 688 points, always said the American was the only true champion, and his family later confirmed he had never accepted the medal as his own.
King Gustav V of Sweden
King Gustav V of Sweden said it while handing Thorpe his prizes; the famous reply, "Thanks, King", is only reputed and may be embroidery.
Q 24The challenge prize for Thorpe's decathlon win had been donated by which ruler?
Czar Nicholas II of Russia
Czar Nicholas II of Russia gave the decathlon challenge prize, as the Games' official report lists; Thorpe had to send it back with his medals in 1913.
Q 25On his return from the 1912 Olympics, Thorpe was the star of what kind of New York celebration?
A ticker-tape parade
A ticker-tape parade up Broadway greeted the returning Olympic team; Thorpe recalled hearing people yell his name and said, "I couldn't realize how one fellow could have so many friends."
Q 26Weeks after the Olympics, Thorpe broke Martin Sheridan's record to win which title at Celtic Park in New York?
AAU All-Around Championship
AAU All-Around Championship, the American forerunner of the decathlon, fell to Thorpe with a record 7,476 points; it proved to be his last track meet, as he was ruled a professional months later.
Q 27Why did Thorpe's widow look beyond his home state for a place to bury him?
The governor vetoed memorial funds
The governor vetoed memorial funds that local officials had sought for a monument, so his widow made a deal with two Pennsylvania towns willing to build one and take his name.
Q 28Which famous director cast Thorpe in one of his last film parts, in 1950?
John Ford
John Ford gave him a small part in Wagon Master near the end of his screen career; a year later Hollywood put Thorpe's own life story on the screen.
Q 29Thorpe told the AAU he was "simply an Indian schoolboy" who did what?
Did not know that he was doing wrong
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.
Q 30With which Major League Baseball team did Thorpe sign in 1913?
New York Giants
New York Giants, the reigning National League champions, beat out rival clubs to sign him in February 1913, then used him in only 19 games that season.