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James Francis Thorpe was an American athlete who won Olympic gold medals and played professional football, baseball, and basketball. A citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, Thorpe won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics.
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entertainment · American athlete (1887–1953) · baseball player · basketball player · athletics competitor · actor · American football player · film actor · screenwriter · American football coach · athlete · also Jim Thorpe, Wa-Tho-Huk, James Francis Thorpe, Bright Path, Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe, Thorpe
Died 28 March 1953 · Q221482
66 published statements · 0 followers
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Eric Kassoway, 19, was reveling at a concert last year when he decided to sneak up on his friend, Daniel Strouss, and yank up his underwear. Apparently, it must have hurt because Strouss, 19, held a grudge for months. So much so that on the night of June 12, he drove to Kassoway’s home and shot him in the arm and the leg. Kassoway nearly died from loss of blood.
In the Cold War world, the wedgie was also a sure way to build up sympathy for the plucky screen heroes in comedies like 1984’s Revenge of the Nerds and in 1985’s Just One of the Guys.
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“Eric Kassoway, 19, was reveling at a concert last year when he decided to sneak up on his friend, Daniel Strouss, and yank up his underwear. Apparently, it must have hurt because Strouss, 19, held a grudge for months. So much so that on the night of June 12, he drove to Kassoway’s home and shot him in the arm and the leg. Kassoway nearly died from loss of blood.”
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Yahoo: Rotary Club launches new walking tour in Jim Thorpe
Public attention spiked: 10,901 Wikipedia readers in one day, 5.6× the usual 1,933, with 0 article edits.
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Public attention spiked: 13,915 Wikipedia readers in one day, 7.2× the usual 1,933, with 0 article edits.
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Public attention spiked: 6,538 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.4× the usual 1,933, with 0 article edits.
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“In the Cold War world, the wedgie was also a sure way to build up sympathy for the plucky screen heroes in comedies like 1984’s Revenge of the Nerds and in 1985’s Just One of the Guys.”
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Won Presidential Medal of Freedom (2024).
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President Joe Biden announced that Thorpe would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor given in the United States
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After the National Olympic Committees of Norway and Sweden had given their approval
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Snopes rated the claim “A photograph shows medalist Jim Thorpe wearing mismatched shoes at the 1912 Olympics.” True.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
In Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
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Thorpe became one of the inductees in the first induction ceremony held by the National Native American Hall of Fame
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Thorpe was honored with the AAU Gussie Crawford Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to amateur sports
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The United States Supreme Court refused to hear the matter, effectively ending the legal process
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The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed Judge Caputo's ruling
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“s remains returned to Sac and Fox land in central Oklahoma. On October 23, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed Judge Caputo”
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Sports Illustrated retroactively named Thorpe the Heisman Trophy winner for the 1911 and 1912 seasons
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“An Oklahoma man was sentenced late on Thursday to 30 years in prison for asphyxiating his stepfather with an atomic wedgie in December 2013.”
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“Somewhere out there, freshman boys are keeping the lowest possible profile to avoid senior football players who seek to wedgie them or worse, and this is a good thing in that it’s a firsthand lesson in the human condition. Sometimes life stinks.”
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By ABC Sports, Thorpe was voted the Greatest Athlete of the Twentieth Century; the pool of 15 other top athletes included Muhammad Ali, Pelé, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Wayne Gretzky, Jack Nicklaus, and Michael Jordan
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The Associated Press placed him third on its list of the top athletes of the century, following Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan
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As part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series
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Awarded Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame (1986).
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The Jim Thorpe Association established an award with Thorpe's name
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“Screen wedgies declined over the next 20 years perhaps due to shame over their bullying origins or because high school geeks began to rule the world.”
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The IOC presented two of Thorpe's children, Gale and Bill, with commemorative medals
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30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored Thorpe's Olympic medals with replicas, after ruling that the decision to strip him of his medals fell outside of the required 30 days
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Wheeler and Ridlon established the Jim Thorpe Foundation and gained support from the U
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Awarded Pro Football Hall of Fame (1963).
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One of seventeen players in the charter class
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Erected a monument to him at the grave, merged, and renamed the newly united town in his honor as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
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On a farm in Oklahoma, Sac and Fox Thunder clan members, along with indigenous members of Thorpe's family, met to carry out a traditional Sac burial ceremony
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Died 1953-03-28.
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Time magazine named him The Greatest Athlete
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Awarded Oklahoma Hall of Fame (1950).
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Thorpe was admitted as a charity case
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An Associated Press poll of almost 400 sportswriters and broadcasters voted Thorpe the "greatest athlete" of the first half of the 20th century
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That he was born May 28, 1888, "near and south of Bellemont – Pottawatomie County – along the banks of the North Fork River
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After they had been married for 15 years
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During the Great Depression, Thorpe sold the film rights to his life story to MGM for $1,500 (equivalent to $32,000 in 2025)
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By the NFL as the league's official All-NFL team
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Thorpe married Freeda Verona Kirkpatrick (September 19, 1905 – March 2, 2007)
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And 1–10 in 1923, Thorpe played well and was selected for the Green Bay Press-Gazette's first All-NFL team in 1923
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The Bulldogs were one of 14 teams to form the American Professional Football Association, which became the National Football League (NFL) two years later
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Before being traded to the Boston Braves on May 21, 1919, for Pat Ragan
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Iva and Thorpe bought a house now known as the Jim Thorpe House in Yale, Oklahoma, and lived there until 1923
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Helping them win three professional championships
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Was considering going into professional hockey for the Tecumseh Hockey Club in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Thorpe signed with the New York Giants, and played six seasons in Major League Baseball between 1913 and 1919
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As a member of the Indiana-based Pine Village Pros, a team that had a several-season winning streak against local teams during the 1910s
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The defending 1912 National League champion
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Thorpe returned to Celtic Park, the home of the Irish American Athletic Club, in Queens, New York (where he had qualified four months earlier for the Olympic Games), to compete in the Amateur Athletic Union's All-Around
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Which included a record score in the decathlon, Thorpe added a victory in the All-Around Championship of the Amateur Athletic Union
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Strict rules regarding amateurism were in effect for athletes participating in the Olympics
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Thorpe led the nation with 29 touchdowns and 224 points scored during the season, according to the College Football Hall of Fame
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Or 1911, although this turned out to be the sport in which he gained his greatest fame
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Thorpe had the unusual status of a sought-after free agent at the major league level during the era of the reserve clause, because the minor league team that last held his contract had disbanded that year, so he was free
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And 1910, receiving meager pay; reportedly as little as US$2 ($69 in 2025) per game and as much as US$35 ($1,209 in 2025) per week
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(also at Celtic Park), by Martin Sheridan, the champion athlete of the Irish American Athletic Club
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And a first-team All-American in 1911 and 1912
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Versus Susquehanna, where he scored four touchdowns
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Thorpe again entered as a substitute during Carlisle's win over Villanova
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Against Lebanon Valley, coming off the bench to score two touchdowns in a 40–0 victory
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When he walked past the track and, still in street clothes, beat all the school's high jumpers with an impromptu 5-ft 9-in jump that broke the school record
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The 16-year-old Thorpe returned to his father and decided to attend Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
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“near and south of Bellemont – Pottawatomie County – along the banks of the North Fork River ... hope this will clear up the inquiries as to my birthplace.”
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