"Thanks, King."

I listened to Joseph Bruchac's biography of "Jim Thorpe: Original All-American," while driving around for work the last couple of days. For those of you who don't know, Jim Thorpe was probably one of the greatest athletes who ever lived.

Although I knew of Jim's athletic abilities and that he won gold medals in the Olympics of 1912, I didn't know that much about him beyond that.

Joseph Bruchac read the book himself on CD and he told it in novelistic form from the point of view of Jim Thorpe.

Jim was a Sac and Fox boy out of Oklahoma, born late in the 1800's. He was from the same band as Black Hawk, whom the famous 1830's war was named after. His parents figured it would be a good idea for him to get an education in this world, and shipped him off to Haskell, where he ran away some 9 times.

He wound up at Carlisle Indian School because his father didn't want him running away to home again instead of getting an education.

We get a good glimpse into what Indian school was like. The attempts at culture destruction, etc. But after Jim's parents died, he didn't feel like he could go home anymore, so he made the best of his schooling. One day some fellas were doing the high jump. Jim watched as they couldn't make it past 5'9". Jim asked if he could have a crack at it. The guys laughed because they were not only trained athletes and didn't know anything about Jim, but Jim was also in his farming clothes, overalls and such. They let him try and he cleared it with space to spare. He and his buddy ran off to do whatever they were doing. The next day he was called into the office of Pop Warner who was coaching the track and field team and the football team at the time. Jim thought he was in trouble, but he was recruited instead. Jim did, indeed, get into a lot of trouble, as the rules were so strict it was difficult not to, but he loved and excelled at athletics.

I had always heard of Pop Warner Football, but not being into athletics growing up, or now even, I had never associated Pop Warner as the name of an actual human being. Carlisle Indian School also played football with many Ivy League Schools...AND WON MOST OF THE TIME! I neverknew this. Frank Mount Pleasant, the quarterback form many of those her 1900's years, I believe is said to have been the first person to throw a forward pass, even perfected it. More often than not, those Ivy League schools would have more players to choose from, often twice as many as Carlisle, but the Indians still consistently whipped their asses...I DIDN'T KNOW THIS!

I didn't know famous American poet, Mary Anne Moore, had her first teaching position at Carlisle and that her and Jim knew each other pretty well.

The Hopi's refused to send their children to boarding schools in those days, so many were arrested and put in prison and their children shipped off to boarding schools. Louis Tewanima and his fellow Hopis were rather scrawny but kept on watching the runners. One day Louis and the rest went up to Pop Warner and told him they wanted to suit up and run. He thought they were joking as scrawny as they were. He gave them a shot. They ran well for five minutes around the track...10 minutes...half an hour later they hadn't lost a bit of stride.

Tewanima won many races and was called at one time the fastest man for distances between 10 and 20 miles. In 1908 he was ninth in the marthon at the London Olympics and in 1912 won silver in the 10,000 meters and set an American record that wasn't beat for 52 years. I never knew that Indians contributed so much to sports especially in the early 1900's.

Here Louis Tewanima is pictured with, from L to R: Larry Sekaquaptewa, Grace Thorpe and her son, John Adler, with Louis on the right. It was taken in 1968. Louis left Carlisle after his 5 year sentence was up. You see, he did all that running as a prisoner of war living out a sentence at the Carlisle Indian School.

Jim Thorpe won the Pentathalon and Decathalon at the 1912 Olympics. The photo above shows King Gustav of Sweden placing the medal on Thorpe. After King Gustav gave Jim much praise and called him the greatest athlete in the world, Jim simply replied..."Thanks, King."

Jim Thorpe was married three times, had an unimpressive baseball career (some say he was held back), helped start up professional football, was the first president of what would become the NFL (I forget what it was originally called), lectured around the nation for many years, forced the U.S. government to let him join the military when WWII broke out (he was 57 and he became a merchant marine) and passed away from a massive heart attack in 1953.

His Olympic medals were taken from him to massive objections worldwide form major sports writers, athletes, and coaches, with even King Gustav putting in a few words, because he had played professional minor league baseball in the summer leagues, making $15 a month. Pop Warner who encouraged it, wrote up a confession that cleared him and any other official of Carlisle of knowing about it. Although I had admiration for Pop for what he did for the Indians during this horrific time in our history, he was also capitalizing off of what the Indians did for him and was now putting a knife in the back of Jim Thorpe, but Jim did as he was told, even though he had never lied in his whole life.

Besides being an excellent athlete, Jim was also known for other qualities that I admire: He was always kind to others and so generous he rarely had much money.

It was great getting to know Jim Thorpe and other Indians of the past like Gus Welch, Louis Tewamina, and Frank Mount Pleasant, whom I would have never heard of otherwise. Good job Joseph Burchac.