Who Was Jim Thorpe?

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Have you ever seen the movie about Jim Thorpe? I think that Burt Lancaster played the role. According to the king of Sweden who presented Jim Thorpe with TWO Gold Medals at the 1912 Olympics, he was “the greatest athlete in the world.” Of mixed Native American and European ancestry, Jim Thorpe became famous nationally playing college football at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. In 1912, his 25 touchdowns and 198 points stood as a record for a very long time. Then, at the 1912 Olympics, he won both the pentathlon and the decathlon, the first person to ever accomplish that feat. However, he is probably better known as the Olympian who had to give his medals back, because he had been paid to play baseball during his summer vacation from college and was therefore considered a professional. In those days, professional athletes were barred from the Olympics. After the Olympics, Jim Thorpe played professional baseball for six years and then professional football for the New York Giants and some other teams and was elected to the college and professional halls of fame. It wasn’t until long after his death, that the Olympic authorities decided to restore his status as an amateur and duplicates of his 1912 medals were presented to his family in 1982.