Steve Sheinkin - Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

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For David

Jim Thorpe looked ridiculous and he knew it like a scarecrow dressed for football, hed later say. The borrowed pants barely reached his knees. The grass-stained jersey hung loose on his lanky frame. The cleats were coming apart.

He walked out to Indian Field anyway.

Football practice had already begun, and about thirty athletes in their teens and early twenties were loosening up. The head coach, Pop Warner, stood watching. Warner was a big man with a square block of a head, a whistle on a string around his neck, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He saw the scarecrow coming.

What do you think youre doing out here?

I want to play football, Thorpe said.

The players stopped and looked. A few laughed.

Warner was not laughing. Im only going to tell you once, Jim. Go back to the locker room and take that uniform off! Youre my most valuable track man, and I dont want you to get hurt playing football.

Thorpe had expected as much from Warner, who also coached the track team. At nineteen, Thorpe owned pretty much every running and jumping record at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Just under six feet tall, muscular but thin, he was built for speedbut he loved football, too.

And besides, he despised being told there was something he couldnt do.

I want to play football , he said again.

Jim Thorpes jaw-dropping tryout earned him this better-fitting uniformbut Coach Warner still thought he was too skinny for football.

Again, Warner told Jim to take a hike. With less than two weeks to get his team ready for the 1907 college football season, the coach had no time for nonsense.

But Thorpe would not leave the field.

All right, Warner finally grunted. If this is what you want, go out there and give my varsity boys a little tackling practice. He tossed Thorpe a football. And believe me, thats all youll be to them.

Thorpe caught the ball and held it, running his fingers over the leather and laces of a store-bought football for the first time in his life. He tucked the ball under his arm, walked to one of the chalk goal lines, turned, and studied the field.

There in front of him was the famous Carlisle School football team, a diverse group of Native Americans from all over the country. There was the team hed been hearing about, dreaming about, since he was a kid. The players were spread out on the grass, maybe five feet between each man. There was no chance for a runner to get very far. That was the point. This was a tackling exercise.

Warner shouted for Thorpe to begin.

He started forward. The first few defenders got low and grabbed for his legs. Thorpe spun free and continued. Another group dove at him. He lifted his knees high and churned through outstretched arms. Picking up his pace, he faked out the next few tacklers; then, with a bit of open field around him, he turned on his sprinters speed and was gone.

The cigarette fell from the corner of Pop Warners open mouth.

After crossing the goal line, Thorpe circled back to the coach. A huge grin on his face, he tossed Warner the football.

I gave them some good practice, right, Pop?

Warners coaching assistant was smiling too. Youre supposed to let them tackle you, Jim, he said.

The man was kidding, but Thorpe thought he was being laughed at. His smile vanished. He said, Nobodys going to tackle Jim.

Warners square face flushed raw-beef red. He slammed the ball back into Thorpes chest.

Well, lets see if you can do it again, kid!

And to his team he yelled, Get mean out there! Smack him down! Hit him down so hard he doesnt get up! Who does he think he is? This isnt a track meet! This is football! Hit! Hit! Hit!

Pop lit a new cigarette. Thorpe walked back to the goal line.

And then he ran through the whole team again.

He twisted through tackles and shoved defenders out of the way, faking some guys out and flat-out blowing by others. It was a combination of power, agility, and speed Pop Warner had never seen in one playerand never would again.

Thorpe jogged back to Warner. No grin this time. He tossed the coach the ball.

Sorry, Pop, he said. Nobodys going to tackle Jim.

Yes, Jim Thorpe made the team.

And for a brief and magical span of years, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School had the best football team in the country. Carlisle was the fastest team anyone had ever seen, the most creative, the most fun to watch. They traveled anywhere and took on anyone, playing all their toughest games on the road. The team drew crowds in train stations, hotel lobbies, and especially football stadiumsCarlisles 1911 showdown with powerhouse Harvard University drew more fans than the opening game of that years World Series. Carlisle had the games most innovative coach in Pop Warner, and, in Jim Thorpe, the greatest star the sport had ever seen.

None of it was easy.

After a lifetime in the sport, Warner would say, No college player I ever saw had the natural aptitude for football possessed by Jim Thorpe. But what the coach called natural aptitude was really something richer, a mix of outrageous athletic talent and a force of will hard-earned from a childhood that would have broken most boys.

The challenges began early. Jims father, an enormous man named Hiram, saw to that.

As a toddler, Jim liked to splash around in the shallow water near the bank of the North Canadian River, which ran behind his familys cabin in Oklahoma. One day Hiram strode into the river in his boots, grabbed the kid, hauled him out to the deep water, and dropped him into the current. Hiram then waded back to the bank and watched.

Jim raised his head above the water. It was forty yards to the riverbank. It looked like a mile.

He managed to dog-paddle to shore and collapsed on dry land.

Hiram stood over his three-year-old boy and said, Dont be afraid of the water, son, and it wont be afraid of you.

* * *

Hiram Thorpe pushed his son hard, and their clashes of will would only intensify as Jim grew older.

Charlotte Vieux was born in Kansas, but moved to Oklahoma with her family when she was twelve. The Potawatomi, like the people of many other nations, were removed from their land several times by the US government.

And Jim really didnt seem to fear anything, or anyone. Not even his father.

Hiram Thorpe, son of a Sac and Fox Indian mother and an Irish father, stood six foot three, 235 pounds. He walked around armed with a pistol, bullets in his belt, wearing a black cowboy hat. No one messed with Jims mother, either. Charlotte Vieux, daughter of a Potawatomi Indian woman whod married a French-Canadian trader, was described by friends as pretty, tall, and big-boned, about two hundred pounds, with exceptionally strong hands.