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Jim Thorpe: a life
Sunday, January 14, 2001 By Milan Simonich
Jim Thorpe was a shining -- and controversial -- star in life and death. Here is his capsule biography.
May 28, 1887 -- James Francis Thorpe and his twin brother, Charles, are born in a log cabin near Prague, Okla. (In various biographies, the year of Jim's birth was long listed as 1888, a date that appears on his tomb). Thorpe's heritage was primarily Fox and Sac Indian.
1907 -- Thorpe comes to the nation's attention when he excels in football at the Carlisle Indian School in Central Pennsylvania.
1909 -- Thorpe leaves school to play baseball in the Eastern Carolina Association. The few hundred dollars he makes will soon cause him anguish.
1911-12 -- Thorpe returns to Carlisle and becomes college football's most dominant player. In 1912, he scores 25 touchdowns and 198 points, both collegiate records at the time.
1912 Olympics, Stockholm, Sweden -- Thorpe wins gold medals in track and field's most grueling events, the decathlon and pentathlon.
1913 -- The Amateur Athletic Union strips Thorpe of his Olympic medals after learning that he had played baseball for money. In this era, the Olympic Games were restricted to amateur athletes.
1913 to 1919 -- Thorpe becomes a two-sport professional star. He plays outfield for the New York Giants, Cincinnati Reds and Boston Braves. In 1916, 1917 and 1919 he also leads the Canton Bulldogs to unofficial pro football championships.
1920 -- Thorpe becomes the first president of the American Professional Football Association, a predecessor of the National Football League.
1929 -- At 42, Thorpe plays his last pro football game, for the Chicago Cardinals. In retirement, he would make occasional public appearances. He also drank heavily and disappeared from his family for days at a time.
1950 -- The Associated Press selects Thorpe as the most outstanding athlete of the first half of the 20th century.
1951 -- The movie "Jim Thorpe -- All American" is released. It stars Burt Lancaster.
March 28, 1953 -- Thorpe dies in Lomita, Calif. He was two months shy of his 66th birthday. Oklahoma legislators allocate $25,000 to give their native son an ornate tomb in Shawnee, but the governor vetoes the plan. Thorpe's third wife, Patricia, later takes possession of the corpse and begins searching for a town that will pay for burial rights.
May 16, 1954 -- Two ailing Pennsylvania towns, Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, vote to merge under the name "Jim Thorpe." The towns agree to provide a tomb for Thorpe's body. They expect an economic and tourism boom to result.
May 1957 -- A $10,000 mausoleum in Jim Thorpe is completed.
1960s -- Residents of Jim Thorpe reject two proposals to change the name of the town back to Mauch Chunk. A resident angry about the Thorpe name attacks the athlete's tomb with a hammer, but is never prosecuted.
1982 -- The International Olympic Committee restores Thorpe's medals and his place in the record book.
Sept. 9, 2000 -- Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, honors its namesake with an "Athlete of the Century" celebration. Organizers begin making plans for a Thorpe statue and perhaps a museum.
Today -- Thorpe's sons, Jack, Bill and Dick, ask the townspeople of Jim Thorpe to release their father's remains voluntarily for a proper Indian burial in Oklahoma.
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