March 8, 2018
Volume 48 - No. 10
By Tom Morrow
He was an all-American athlete at college and professional football, baseball, and basketball, as well as one of the greatest Olympian track and field stars of all time. Jim Thorpe won the Pentathlon and The The Paper Paper -- 760.747.7119 760.747.7119
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Decathlon events in the 1912 Olympics, something that hadn’t been done before or since.
James Francis Thorpe, a Native American, (Sac and Fox (Sauk), was born May 22 or 28, 1887. He was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and
Fox Nation, Thorpe became the first Native American to win a gold medal for his home country. Today, he is considered the most-versatile athletes of modern sports.
He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the
Olympics, thus violating the amateurism rules that were in place at that time. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals – sort of. After the Olympics, Thorpe signed a baseball contract with the New York
Jim Thorpe - See Page 2