OLYMPIC CHAMPION

America's Greatest Athlete?

Jim Thorpe, who many believe was America's finest all-around athlete, was certainly the nation's greatest Native American sportsman. The son of Hiram Thorpe, a farmer of mixed Irish and Sac and Fox Indian descent, and Charlotte Vieux Thorpe, of French and Chippewa heritage, Jim was born in the Oklahoma Indian Territory. As a boy he attended the Sac and Fox Reservation School and the Haskell Institute for Indians at Lawrence, Kansas. Thorpe, who preferred outdoor activities like horseback riding, swimming, hunting, and baseball over books, often found himself in classroom brawls. When Thorpe was orphaned at age sixteen, authorities enrolled him in the Carlisle Institute in Pennsylvania, the nation's foremost school for Indian youth, renowned for its strict discipline and code of conduct.

College All-American.

At Carlisle, Thorpe was trained as a tailor and a...