Jim Thorpe

James Francis "Jim" Thorpe (b. probably May 22, 1887 near Prague in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) as Wa-Tho-Huck; † March 28, 1953 in Lomita, California) was a successful U.S. athlete in several sports. He won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, was a professional player in American football and baseball, and also played basketball. His Olympic medals were revoked because he had played in a semi-professional baseball league for two years prior to the 1912 Olympics, in violation of amateur regulations.

After losing his amateur status, Thorpe played Major League Baseball from 1913 to 1919, including with the New York Giants. In 1915 he also joined the Canton Bulldogs, who were among the founding members of the National Football League in 1920. He himself led the predecessor of this professional league nominally as president for two years. In all, Thorpe played for seven different football teams until 1928. Likewise, he founded a basketball team composed entirely of Indians. He was active as a professional athlete until the age of 41, his career ending to coincide with the Great Depression. Thorpe tried his hand at acting, but increasingly struggled to make a living. He suffered from alcoholism and spent the last years of his life in poverty. In 1983, thirty years after his death, the International Olympic Committee rehabilitated him.

Due to the fact that Thorpe played several sports at the highest level, he is considered one of the most outstanding athletes of modern sports. The Associated Press calls him the best athlete of the first half of the 20th century. He was one of the first players ever inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963. A small town in Pennsylvania is named after him.

Legacy

Olympic rehabilitation

Over the years, there have been various attempts to have Thorpe's Olympic achievements recognized again, but American sports officials, most notably IOC President Avery Brundage, have blocked them each time. Brundage once commented, "Ignorance is no excuse." Most adamant about Thorpe's rehabilitation was author Robert Wheeler and his wife Florence Ridlon. Wheeler was able to prove in a 1975 biography that Thorpe's disqualification had been illegal. The couple got the Amateur Athletic Union and the United States Olympic Committee to overturn their decision at the time and restore Thorpe's pre-1913 amateur status.

Wheeler and Ridlon set up a foundation called the Jim Thorpe Foundation in 1982 and managed to get the backing of the US Congress. With this backing, and with evidence that Thorpe's disqualification had occurred after the 30-day period had expired and was therefore in violation of regulations at the time, they submitted the case to the IOC for re-evaluation. On October 13, 1982, the IOC Executive Board approved Thorpe's rehabilitation. At the same time, it declared him joint Olympic champion with Ferdinand Bie and Hugo Wieslander, both of whom had always insisted Thorpe was the only true winner. Two of Thorpe's children, Gail and William, were presented with replicas of the 1912 gold medals from the hands of IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch in a ceremony on January 18, 1983. The originals had been exhibited in museums, but were then stolen and remained missing until today.

Honors

Journalists applauded Thorpe's achievements both during his lifetime and since his death. In a 1950 Associated Press (AP) poll of 400 sportswriters and reporters, he was voted the most outstanding male athlete of the first half of the 20th century. Another poll conducted by AP that same year named him the most outstanding football player in the same time period. Also, a 1999 AP poll found Thorpe to be the third best athlete of the century, behind Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan. The ESPN television network ranked him seventh on its list of the best North American athletes.

In 1963, Jim Thorpe received the National Football League's highest honor, induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as one of 17 players in the first round of awards. He is remembered with a larger-than-life statue in the Pro Football Hall of Fame exhibit in Canton, Ohio. Likewise, he belongs to the Halls of Fame for college football, U.S. Olympic teams and track and field athletes. In 2018, he was one of the first twelve honorees of the National Native American Hall of Fame.

Authorized by Senate Joint Resolution 73, President Richard Nixon declared April 16, 1973, "Jim Thorpe Day" to promote his nationwide recognition. In 1986, the Jim Thorpe Award was first presented; it goes to the top defensive back in college football each year. On February 3, 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp to commemorate Thorpe. A national competition between decathletes and heptathletes from the United States and Germany, introduced in 2007, is named the Thorpe Cup in his honor.

Jim Thorpe (Pennsylvania)

Thorpe's body was taken by rail from California to Shawnee, Oklahoma. Funeral services were held there at St. Benedict Catholic Church, with burial in Fairview Cemetery. Acquaintances and relatives launched a fundraising campaign to erect a memorial in his honor at the city's athletics complex. Local officials petitioned the state legislature for support, but Governor Johnston Murray vetoed a bill that included a $25,000 grant. In the meantime, without the knowledge of the rest of the family, the widow had the body exhumed and transferred to Pennsylvania. She had learned that the small towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk in Carbon County were looking for new sources of tourist revenue. As a result, the widow struck a deal with officials there: Thorpe's remains were purchased, and the residents of both towns decided in a referendum to merge and name the new community Jim Thorpe, even though the namesake himself had probably never been there. The monument on the outskirts of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, includes his tomb, two statues depicting him in athletic poses, and several plaques.

Jim Thorpe's daughters subsequently gave their consent and visited the site named after their father several times. His son Jack, however, filed a federal lawsuit in June 2010, seeking to bring his father's remains back to Oklahoma. Relying on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), he argued that the only rightful burial place was on the reservation in Oklahoma next to the graves of his father and his sisters and brothers, about a mile from his birthplace. He claimed that the agreement between his stepmother and Jim Thorpe (Pennsylvania) town authorities was made against the wishes of other family members. Before the case could be heard in the first instance, Jack Thorpe died at the age of 73 in February 2011.

In April 2013, a judge at the United States District Court ruled that the monument in Jim Thorpe (Pennsylvania) amounted to a museum within the meaning of NAGPRA and that the mortal remains must therefore be returned if a direct descendant so desired. The lawyer of Thorpe's still living sons Richard and William, who had disagreed with Jack's actions, then announced an appeal. On October 23, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit overturned the lower court's ruling and ruled in favor of Jim Thorpe. According to Pennsylvania state case law, there must be clear and cogent reasons for reburial, but that was not the case here. On 5 October 2015, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case, effectively bringing the litigation to a close.

Tomb of Jim Thorpe in the town of the same name