JUSTICE! One-Hundred Ten Years in the Making
Review by Dr. Jerry Flack
On July 15, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) rewrote their records to declare Jim Thorpe as the sole winner of the gold medals for the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1912 Stockholm Games. On that historic day, Jim Thorpe became the first Native American to win Olympic gold medals. He completely dominated his two Olympic events. Sweden’s King Gustav V presented Thorpe with his medals and said to the young champion, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.”
After the initial glory of his Stockholm triumphs, disaster and treachery struck in 1913 when Thorpe was stripped of his amateur status and forced to return his gold medals. His name and phenomenal accomplishments were erased from Olympic records. Ferdinand Bie of Norway and Hugo Wieslander of Sweden very reluctantly accepted the first-place honors that rightfully belonged to Jim Thorpe.
The betrayal by Jim Thorpe by his coach, “Pop” Warner, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School superintendent, and the racist-based actions of the American Olympic Committee (A.O.C.), have stood for more than a century as one of the most shameful incidents in the history of sports. Terribly poor and with the knowledge and encouragement of his college coaches, Thorpe had played semi-pro or minor league baseball in 1909 and 1910 for as little as two dollars per game. In reality, many other “amateur” athletes had also played in semi-pro sporting events prior to their Olympic appearances in 1912, but they used aliases to lie about such minor league competitions. Thorpe was a modest man with a love for honesty.
In 1982, three decades after Thorpe’s death, the I.O.C. admitted that its officials had violated their own rules, which stated that any questions or protests of winning athletes had to be made within 30 days of the Summer Games. Thorpe’s amateur status was restored, his gold medals were returned to his family, and the Olympic records were rewritten to include Thorpe as the “co-winner” of the two events he ruled in Stockholm in 1912.
That decision remained unsatisfactory to contemporary Native Americans as a denial to the true greatness of Thorpe’s Olympic victories. Finally, on July 15, 2022, exactly 110 years after Thorpe’s Stockholm triumphs, the I.O.C. once again rewrote its history to recognize Thorpe as the sole winner of his gold medal events on July 15, 1912. The previous co-winners of first-place finishes are now listed as co-winners of the silver medals.
Jim Thorpe’s indigenous name was Wa-tho-huck. The English-language equivalent is “Bright Path.” Thorpe and his twin brother, Charles, were born in 1887 in what was then Oklahoma Territory. Their mother was Charlotte Vieux Thorpe. She was of Potowatomie ancestry. Her husband, Hiram, was a descendant of the Sac and Fox Indian Nations.
Two contemporary biographies of Thorpe have been created by author Joseph Bruchac of Nulhegan Abenaki descent and illustrator S. D. Nelson of Lakota (Sioux) lineage. Their life stories of Jim Thorpe are aimed at two different audiences. Bruchac has also written the novel, Jim Thorpe, Original All-American (Penguin Young Readers, 2008) that wonderfully blends fact and fiction.
Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path is an introductory level picture book biography with beautiful, full-color artwork. The narrative is simple and has as its twin foci Thorpe’s great athletic skills and his tragic early life. Thorpe’s physical gifts emerged in his childhood. He loved the outdoors and was a remarkable runner. When the twins became six years old, their father made a decision that was to impact the remainder of Jim Thorpe’s life. “Pa” Thorpe believed the only way for Indians to succeed in the dominant white world was to send them to Native American boarding schools. Such schools had one major goal. They existed to strip Indian children of their language, history, heritage, family ties, and anything else that was remotely “Indian.” Regardless of geography, such schools were primarily the same. Their purpose was to make students as “white” as possible. The children could only speak the English language, wear military clothing, have military haircuts, and have no contact with their families or Indian cultural traditions. Such schools only taught Native American students manual labor skills. Indian girls were exclusively trained to be maids. The food and health conditions at such schools was poor. They often lacked adequate heat and no medical care. Early in their Indian school attendance, Jim’s twin brother, Charlie, became ill and died. In a few short years, Jim also lost both his mother and father. His only home was at an Indian school.
Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path emphasizes the development of its hero’s phenomenal athletic prowess. Thorpe demonstrated his incredible gifts of track and field, basketball and football at the Carlisle Indian School of Pennsylvania where he became an All-American and began a journey down a road that would initially appear to be a “bright path.” He excelled in more than a dozen sports, including tennis, swimming, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, handball, rowing, ice hockey, and figure skating.
Bruchac provides expository author notes and a timeline of Jim Thorpe’s life that document his remarkable athletic career including his 1912 Olympic triumphs. A major strength of Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path is the artistry of S. D. Nelson. His full-color illustrations are both beautiful and heroic. The book provides a fine introduction to the person who has often been named the greatest and most gifted athlete of the 20th-century, as well as the world’s first athletic super star.
More recently, the collaborators Bruchac and Nelson have published a more comprehensive life and scholarly examination of Thorpe’s life for older readers. The Story of All-Star Athlete Jim Thorpe is a reference book complete with informative sidebars, a timeline, a bibliography of resources, additional recommended reading, and an extensive glossary and pronunciation guide of words printed in bold in the text. The side bars highlight the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe’s probable famous ancestor, Black Hawk, a history of Native American boarding schools such as Carlisle, and a profile of Glenn “Pop” Warner who was Thorpe’s greatest coach, but also the man who used treachery to falsely write a “confession” purported to place all the blame for the 1912 Olympic amateur standing totally on Thorpe’s shoulders. An admission of his own knowledge and support of Thorpe’s semi-pro baseball participation would have ruined Warner’s own reputation. Many of S. D. Nelson’s illustrations from Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path are reproduced, but only in black-and-white. Archival photographs are also included.
In addition to his Olympic glory, Jim Thorpe played both professional football and baseball and was in 1950 named the Greatest Football Player and Greatest All-Around Male Athlete of the first half century by the Associated Press (AP). In 2000, ABC’s Wide World of Sports voted Thorpe the Athlete of the Century. Despite his greatness, all of Thorpe’s later years were not golden. He experienced marital, financial, and drinking problems. He had never been educated to be anything but a world-class athlete. Time and again, white “friends” took advantage of his naivete. High School gifted readers as well as parents and teachers may want to read a brand new comprehensive adult biography of Thorpe, Path Lit By Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe (Simon & Schuster, 2022) penned by biographer David Maraniss.
Bruchac, Joseph. Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path. Illus. by S. D. Nelson. New York: Lee & Low Books, 2004. Carter G. Woodson Award, 2005.
Bruchac, Joseph. The Story of All-Star Athlete Jim Thorpe. Illus. by S. D. Nelson. New York: Lee & Low Books, 2019.
Home and School Activities
Sports Illustrated Writer. In both the primary text and in sidebars, Jim Thorpe’s football career and the evolution of the sport itself are highlighted in The Story of All-Star Athlete Jim Thorpe. The Carlisle Indian School was essentially a high school for Native American males, but the athletes competed with such early American football college powers as Yale, Harvard, and Pennsylvania and scored huge upset victories. Thorpe was a starter on both offense and defense, the team’s kicker, leading tackler, and scorer. Thorpe was an All-American in 1911 and 1912. Sports Illustrated is recognized for its examples of vivid writing. Encourage students to sample contemporary stories from the magazine. Next, invite them to investigate Jim Thorpe’s college and professional career and write a picturesque tribute for a special Sports Illustrated issue devoted to “Bright Path.”
Olympic History Illustrated. S. D. Nelson is the illustrator of both of Joseph Bruchac’s biographies of Jim Thorpe, but neither source includes a photograph or painting of Wa-tho-huck becoming the first ever Native American to win Olympic Gold Medals as he did at the Stockholm Games of 1912. Encourage readers to search for critical visual details of the epic gold medal wins of Thorpe and create one or more illustrations of the landmark event of his triumphs that have been commissioned by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Ask the Author. Joseph Bruchac is an amazingly prolific author (120+ titles) who maintains an informative website <josephbruchac.com>. He notes with particular pride his Nulhegan Abenaki citizenship. After gifted readers have read his two biographies of Jim Thorpe, urge them to compose at least five probing questions they would like to ask the author. One example might be “What was Jim Thorpe’s greatest personal virtue?” Induce students to submit their questions to the author.
Carter G. Woodson Award. Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path won the prestigious Carter G. Woodson Award in 2005. Ask gifted researchers to use online resources to learn about this special accolade. The primary website lists current and past winners. Suggest to readers that they learn about this medal and compare and contrast it with other previous winners such as Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story (Lee & Low, 2009) written by Patricia Yoo, who won the award in 2010.
