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Jim Thorpe

TheOldMole Dec 01 2007 02:44 PM

From some research I've been doing -- Here's something he actually did in a game against Pittsburgh, in 1911. He punted the ball, then raced downfield, cut through 4 Pittsburgh players and caught his own punt, then ran it in for a touchdown.

iramets Dec 01 2007 03:46 PM

I read this and I go: "Wow, what total turds the other team must have been back then, huh?" I mean, is there anyway you can imagine someone doing this against a decent college team, much less a pro team, today? Was this a college game btw? I have no idea who Thorpe played for, other than the New York Giants. I know there was no NFL back then. I know you're all awed by Thorpe's prowess, and maybe I should be too, Mole, but I'm just not very impressed by a defense that could allow that.

Edgy DC Dec 01 2007 03:59 PM

It's not like it happened every week though. When they beat Army in 1912, he scored on a 92-yard run. The play was called back on a penalty and then he scored on a 97-yard run. Thorpe played for Carlisle Indian Industrial School, who tended to beat the tar out of national powerhouses like Notre Dame during his era. The school was an exploitational nightmare.

TheOldMole Dec 01 2007 04:11 PM

Actually, it seems to have been a little more complicated than that (Carlisle), although on balance, I think you'd have to say it did more harm than good. But it didn't start as exploitational. Pratt, in his time, pretty much stood alone in not dismissing the Indians as savages.

TheOldMole Dec 01 2007 04:26 PM

Even against a wretched defense, there aren't that many who could punt forty yards, and catch their own punt on the fly. Football was not a sophisticated game, then. This was 1911. But if you really want to have some fun, read about 1904, the most vicious, violent year in American football history. Here are some better known, but still impressive, stories about Thorpe. When he arrived at Carlisle, he wandered by where the track team was practicing. They'd set the bar at a height no one had been able to reach (and they were a track and field power) -- 5'9", a remarkable height at the time. Thorpe, in heavy work clothes, asked if he could try it, and cleared it with ease. So he was on the track team, also coached by Pop Warner, but he really wanted to play football, and Warner wouldn't let him -- too small, too valuable to the track team. but he kept after him, and finally, to discourage him and chase him back to track, Warner handed him a football, and said, "Let's see how far you get through those guys" -- those guys being the whole squad, about 40 players, and again, one of the nation's significant football powers. He told his players to rough this guy up, and show him what it's like. Thorpe ran through all of them, goal post to goal post. "Hey, you were supposed to get tackled," Warner said. He was kidding, but Thorpe didn't take kidding too lightly. "Nobody tackles Jim," he said. Warner told him to do it again, and this time he told the team to do whatever it took to stop him. And yeah, wretched defense by modern terms, I suppose, but the only modern coach of his era, the only great innovator, was Pop Warner, and this was a drill he'd worked out -- the squad stretched out down the field, in groups of three or four, so if you somehow got through the first, the next one would be right on top of you. So Thorpe did it again...through the entire team. When he got to the end zone, he repeated, "Nobody tackles Jim."

Frayed Knot Dec 01 2007 04:52 PM

In a similar vein there was a story about Jim Brown from one of the veteren Newsday writers who knew Jim from when he was a multi-sport H.S. star on Long Island. Brown was not only one of the great college then pro football players but was thought to be one of the best lacrosse players ever to that point. So the story went that Brown's Syracuse squad is scheduled to face some major regional rival (might have been Army) in an important lacrosse game and no one can find Jim as game time approaches. A panicked check of the locker room and other likely places turns up nothing. Finally someone decides to check across the athletic field where a multi-school track meet is in progress and it seems that Jim strolled by and decided to enter some of the events on a whim. (going to have to make up the details at this point because I don't remember the specifics - but it was along the lines of the following) By the time his teammates collared him and hauled to back to the about-to-start match Jim had already won the long-jump, the high-jump, placed 2nd in the javelin, and was getting ready to compete in the hurdles.

DocTee Dec 01 2007 04:58 PM

Mole: can you provide info (or point me in the right direction) about 1904?

TheOldMole Dec 01 2007 05:17 PM

The book that gave me the most information (I wasn't focusing on 1904) was The Real All-Americans by Sally Jenkins. You could probably start from there and go to her bibliography.

DocTee Dec 01 2007 06:23 PM

Great: I was thinking of assigning that next term and this just about seals that.

Edgy DC Dec 01 2007 06:25 PM

Checking to make sure I remembered that Army game correctly, I learne that, during that Army game, Thorpe supposedly injured a would be tackler named Dwight David Eisenhower.

Edgy DC Dec 01 2007 06:27 PM

TheOldMole wrote: Actually, it seems to have been a little more complicated than that (Carlisle), although on balance, I think you'd have to say it did more harm than good. But it didn't start as exploitational. Pratt, in his time, pretty much stood alone in not dismissing the Indians as savages. Yeah, I should have tempered that. It ended up as an exploitational nightmare.

TheOldMole Dec 01 2007 06:50 PM

Interestingly, when Eisenhower graduated from high school in Kansas, his classmates voted him most likely to be elected to two terms as US president. Only problem...they got the wrong Eisenhower; This was the prediction for his brother Arthur, who graduated in the same class.

iramets Dec 02 2007 06:30 AM

Eisenhower also earned the nickname [url=http://books.google.com/books?id=RCeteK7LEiYC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=%22swedish+jew%22+eisenhower&source=web&ots=ak98D9rOZ3&sig=-tAvROd6oQx_p7cjA2IKy--Az90]"The Swedish Jew" [/url]at West Point, without being either of Swedish ancestry or Jewish.