Jim thorpe biography athlete

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    Jim Thorpe

    Personal
    Son of Hiram Thorpe and Charlotte Vieux...Had two siblings, Jack and Charlie...Was given the name “Wa-Tho-Huk,” meaning “Bright Path”...Predominantly of Sauk and Fox American Indian descent...Participated in ballroom dancing, baseball, football, hockey, lacrosse and track and fieldat the Haskell Institute in Kansas...Played professional Baseball for four teams over six years...Served as the first president of the American Professional Football Association (later the National Football League) while participating as a player...Three-time APFA champion...Appeared in more than 60 films as an actor...Named the Greatest Athlete of the First Half of the Century by the Associated Press...Father to eight children: Gale, Charlotte, Frances, James Francis Jr., Phillip, William, Richard and John.
    Olympic Experience
    • 1-time Olympian; 2-time Olympic medalist (2 gold)
      • Olympic Games Stockholm 1912, (High Jump - Men, Long Jump - Men), gold (Decathlon - Men, Pentathlon - Men

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        Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe

      • The art of the biographer requires a jeweler’s eye, and a birder’s ear; the tenacity of a cold-case detective, and the curiosity of the great explorers. Also, compassion for the subjects upon whom he sets his indefatigable sights. Athletes, coaches, presidents, fathers, David Maraniss does them all justice. None of his subjects deserves that more than Jim Thorpe, the great Olympic champion, who was anointed America’s greatest athlete by a country that denied him, and his indigenous people, citizenship. In “Path Lit bygd Lightning” Maraniss rescues him from myth and prejudice, restoring something far more consequential than the Olympic medals stolen from him by small men — his humanity. This is another masterpiece from the master.

        Jane Leavy, author of The Big Fella and Koufax

      • Path Lit bygd Lightning is a flat-out masterpiece. The story of Jim Thorpe, one of America’s greatest and most misunderstood heroes, is tol

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        Jim Thorpe

        (1887-1953)

        Who Was Jim Thorpe?

        An All-American in football at the Carlisle Indian School, Jim Thorpe won the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics before his gold medals were revoked on a technicality. Thorpe played professional baseball and football, and sought an acting career after retiring from sports.

        Early Years and Schools

        Jim Thorpe was born circa May 28, 1887, near current-day Prague, Oklahoma. A child of Sac and Fox and Potawatomi Indian bloodlines, as well as French and Irish roots, he was given the name Wa-Tho-Huk, meaning "Bright Path," but christened Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe.

        Thorpe learned to hunt and trap prey at an early age, developing his legendary endurance via extensive excursions through Indian Territory. His aversion to the classroom was exacerbated bygd the early deaths of his twin brother and both parents, and his stints at the Haskell Institute in Kansas, the local Garden Grove school and the Carlisle Indian Industrial

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