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Bios

Jim Thorpe

From: Prague, OK

Birthday: May 28th

Other Facts: -Real name was James Francis Thorpe
-Born in a cabin near what is now Prague, OK
-Thorpe's parents were of mixed-race ancestry and both were Catholic. His father, Hiram Thorpe, had an Irish father and a Sac and Fox Indian mother. His mother, Charlotte Vieux, had a French father and a Potawatomi mother, a descendant of Chief Louis Vieux. Thorpe was raised as a Sac and Fox, and his native name was Wa-Tho-Huk, translated as "path lighted by great flash of lightning" or, more simply, "Bright Path".
-Was actually born a twin, but his brother Charlie died at the age of nine.
-Thorpe attended the Sac and Fox Indian Agency School in Stroud, OK
-Won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden but the medals were taken away and his accomplishments were erased from the record books after it was learned he was paid to play football prior to competing in the Olympics. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee restored his Olympic medals but he ws currently listed as "co-champion". It took until 2022 for the International Olympic Committee to restore his standing as the "Sole" gold medal winner in those events.
-Lived in Yale, OK from 1917 to 1923
-Played professional baseball and professional football. He also excelled at billiards and won awards for ballroom dancing.
-Allegedly Thorpe once hit 3 home runs into 3 different states in the same game. During a semi-pro baseball game in a ballpark on the Texas-Oklahoma-Arkansas border, he hit his first homer over the leftfield wall with the ball landing in Oklahoma, his second homer over the rightfield wall into Arkansas and his third homer of the game was an inside-the-park home run in centerfield, which was in Texas.
-Thorpe is one of two men in history who played for the New York Giants in two different sports. In football, he was the New York Giants' running back and in baseball he was the New York Giants' outfielder.
-From 1920 to 1921, Thorpe was elected the first president of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which became the NFL in 1922.
-In 1950, the Associated Press selected Jim Thorpe as the most outstanding athlete of the first half of the 20th Century and in 1996-2001, he was awarded ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Century.
-Inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1950
-Died on March 28, 1953 of a heart attack. He was interred in a private mausoleum in Jim Thorpe, PA. Thorpe’s family wanted to bury him in Oklahoma and build a memorial for him there. Unfortunately, state officials refused permission. Thorpe’s widow Patricia heard about a small town in Pennsylvania called Mauch Chunk that was seeking a different name to increase town tourism. She struck a deal with the town and brought Thorpe’s remains to the tactfully renamed Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. There, a monument has been erected in his honor with the sentence, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world,” etched in the stone.
-Posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 1986. He was one of the first inductees.
-In June 2010, Thorpe's son, Jack, filed a federal lawsuit against the borough of Jim Thorpe, seeking to have his father's remains returned to his homeland and re-interred near other family members in Oklahoma. Citing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Jack Thorpe is arguing to bring his father's remains to the reservation in Oklahoma. There Thorpe's remains would be buried near his father, sisters, and brother, and would be one mile away from the place he was born. Jack Thorpe says the agreement between his stepmother and borough officials was made against the wishes of other family members. They want him buried in Native American land.