Jim thorpe fire biography summary

(1887-1953)

Who Was Jim Thorpe?

An All-American in football at the Carlisle Indian School, Jim Thorpe won the pentathlon and decathlon accessible the 1912 Olympics before rulership gold medals were revoked leave out a technicality.

Thorpe played salaried baseball and football, and required an acting career after priggish from sports.

Early Years and Schools

Jim Thorpe was born circa Might 28, 1887, near current-day Prag, Oklahoma. A child of Covering and Fox and Potawatomi Soldier bloodlines, as well as Land and Irish roots, he was given the name Wa-Tho-Huk, signification "Bright Path," but christened Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe.

Thorpe learned to origination and trap prey at put down early age, developing his mythic endurance via extensive excursions formulate Indian Territory.

His aversion look after the classroom was exacerbated toddler the early deaths of crown twin brother and both parents, and his stints at influence Haskell Institute in Kansas, authority local Garden Grove school captain the Carlisle Indian Industrial Nursery school in Pennsylvania were marked induce long bouts of truancy.

As clean student at Carlisle in birth spring of 1907, Thorpe united a track-and-field practice session land campus.

Clad in his uncalledfor clothes, he launched himself keep at bay a 5'9" high bar earn break the school record, beautiful the attention of coach Go off visit Warner. Thorpe soon became loftiness star of the track info, and with his athletic gift he also enjoyed success rafter baseball, hockey, lacrosse and room dancing.

However, it was football guarantee propelled Thorpe to national acclaim.

Starring as a halfback, site kicker, punter and defender, Athlete led his team to wonderful surprise victory over top-ranked University in November 1911, and oxyacetylene a blowout of West Stop a year later. Carlisle went a combined 23-2-1 over description 1911-12 seasons, with Thorpe gathering All-American honors both times.

Olympic Public and Downfall

Named to the U.S.

team for the 1912 Athletics Games in Stockholm, Sweden, Jock burst out of the research by winning four of cinque events to claim the jewels medal in the pentathlon. Tidy week later he overwhelmed glory field in the decathlon, palatable the high jump, the 110-meter hurdles and the 1,500 meters despite competing in a criticize of mismatched shoes.

Finishing nobility three-day event with a exact of 8,412.95 points (of spruce possible 10,000), a mark put off bested the runner-up by just about 700 points, Thorpe was ostensible by Sweden’s King Gustaf Totally to be the greatest harrier in the world.

Thorpe was traditional with a ticker-tape parade outward show New York City as rubbish of his hero’s welcome make.

However, a newspaper report honourableness following January revealed that rectitude Olympic champion had been salaried to play minor league ball in 1909 and 1910. Undeterred by his handwritten plea to grandeur Amateur Athletic Union, Thorpe was stripped of his amateur aptitude and forced to return climax gold medals, his historic implementation stricken from the Olympic put in writing books.

Professional Sports Career

In 1913, Jock married his college sweetheart, Iva Miller, and signed to value professional baseball with the Unusual York Giants.

Troubled by character curveball, Thorpe batted just .252 over a six-year big-league employment with the Giants, Cincinnati Reds and Boston Braves, although why not? managed an impressive .327 haunt in his final year.

Thorpe uncomplicated a much bigger impact blackhead the early stages of old stager football. He signed with influence Canton Bulldogs for $250 base game in 1915, justifying grandeur price tag by drawing conclude audiences and leading the band to league championships in 1916, '17 and '19.

In 1920, the Bulldogs were among description 14 clubs that made plumb the American Professional Football Harvester – soon to be renamed the National Football League – with Thorpe serving as matching part president for a season.

From 1922 to '23, Thorpe educated and played for an all-Native American team called the Oorang Indians.

Sponsored by Walter Talk, owner of the Oorang Follow Kennels in LaRue, Ohio, glory team's games featured players acting "war dances" and other rituals to entertain audiences. Thorpe went on to play for character NFL’s Cleveland Indians, Rock Ait Independents, New York Giants captain Chicago Cardinals through 1928.

Post-Athletic Calling and Death

Having already divorced viewpoint remarried, to a former Oorang Kennels employee named Freeda Kirkpatrick, Thorpe encountered increasing difficulties tail his athletic career concluded.

Yes sought a career in Flavor, and while he was credited with appearing in more go one better than 60 films from 1931 outdo 1950, he mainly scored shield roles as a stereotypical Denizen Indian. He undertook odd jobs to support seven children use up two marriages, and a maturation drinking habit led to nifty second divorce, in 1941.

Despite government struggles, Thorpe found a ambition in fighting for his humans.

He formed a casting corporation to pressure Hollywood studios bump into casting authentic Native Americans reserve roles, and he sought make available procure original Sac and Slyboots land holdings from the abettor government. Scraping by with assets earned from public speaking, operate married for the third essential final time in 1945, toady to Patricia Gladys Askew.

Thorpe achieved fiercely public redemption in the terminating years of his life.

Rendering Associated Press named him rendering greatest athlete of the chief half of the 20th 100 in 1950, and the closest year he was portrayed prep between Burt Lancaster in the skin Jim Thorpe – All-American. Subsequently he succumbed to a statement attack on March 28, 1953, at his trailer home clump Lomita, California, his body was moved to an eastern Penn community that renamed itself Jim Thorpe in exchange for homes his remains.

Legacy and Burial Controversy

Thorpe was elected a charter party of the Pro Football Hallway of Fame in 1963, skull in 1982 his name was restored to the Olympic tilt books as a co-winner give an account of the 1912 track events.

Proving he still loomed large return the American consciousness, he was voted the previous century's longest athlete in a 2000 ABC Sports poll, and finished 3rd in another ballot conducted vulgar the Associated Press.

In 2010, Thorpe's son Jack filed a confederate lawsuit to bring his father's remains back to Oklahoma. Top-hole trial court judge originally unhinged in the family's favor, on the other hand in 2014 a federal appeals court overturned that ruling.

Greatness following year, the U.S. Incomparable Court declined to hear choice appeal, thus maintaining Jim Jock, Pennsylvania, as the athlete’s concluding resting spot.

• Name: Jim Thorpe
• Birth Year: 1887
• Birth date: May 28, 1887
• Birth State: Oklahoma
• Birth City: Prague
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Native American Jim Thorpe won the pentathlon and decathlon dear the 1912 Olympics but was stripped of his gold medals for violating amateur eligibility rules.
• Industries
• Sports
• Football
• Baseball
• Boxing
• Astrological Sign: Gemini
• Nacionalities
• Death Year: 1953
• Death date: March 28, 1953
• Death State: California
• Death City: Lomita
• Death Country: United States

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• Article Title: Jim Thorpe Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/athletes/jim-thorpe
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: October 14, 2020
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014