Redskin and All-American: Jim Thorpe's Malleable Symbolic Significance

In 1950 the Associated Press polled close to 400 sportswriters in order to name the greatest male and female athlete of the first half of the twentieth century. For the men, a crowded field of legends including Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Red Grange, George Mikan and Bobby Jones produced a land slide winner. Jim Thorpe received more first-place votes than all of the other nominees combined.

Jim Thorpe rose to fame on the heels of his prodigious athletic ability that translated into success in so many different sports nothing like it has not been seen since. And in the modern era of sports where athletes often specialize from an early age, it will most likely never be seen again. Thorpe, like many great athletes, rose to the public prominence because of his play on the field, but remained there because of what he represented and still represents today. He was a Native American, as current vernacular would describe him, or “redskin,” as contemporary discourse often labeled him. Within that context he was alternatively used as a symbol of the other, especially when his Carlisle Industrial School football team crushed Ivy League and West Point opponents, and as the a shining example of American democratic ideals when he achieved world-wide fame at the 1912 Olympics. Later, when he was stripped of his medals, he was once again held up as a symbol, this time as an example of an American sense of justice that would gladly sacrifice its greatest athlete in order to maintain its virtue.

Thorpe’s usefulness to a society whose discourse is primarily directed by whites is not relegated to the time in which he played the games that made him famous. Mark Rubinfeld argues that Jim Thorpe is “the most recognizable Native American name of the twentieth century,” and as such his name has considerable power as symbol, both when speaking about athletics and Native American assimilation and resistance2. Thorpe the symbol has been used throughout the last century and the current one as representative of everything from America as colorblind meritocracy to America as racist devourer of its own. But before considering Thorpe the symbol, it is necessary to first have some understanding of Thorpe the athlete and Thorpe the man.

Jim Thorpe was born on May 22, 1987 to Hiram and Charlotte Vieux Thorpe in what is now Oklahoma. His father was half-Irish and half Sauk and Fox, his mother was half-French and half Kickapoo-Potowatamie. As is often the case in America, Thorpe’s mixed race ancestry made him fully Indian. Thorpe was sent by his parents to a number of different schools, but he ran away from them so often that his father reportedly asked the Indian Agency to send him far enough away so that he would be unable to find his way home.3 He was eventually sent to Carlisle Industrial School, which had already gained national attention for its Indian athletes, in 1904. Shortly after he arrived, he got word that his father had died from blood poisoning, which coupled with the death of his mother in 1902, gave him no home to run to.

Thorpe would eventually letter in eleven different college sports at Carlisle, and earn All-American honors in football, track, lacrosse, and basketball. Teammate Albert Exendine described him as a “strange, whimsical fellow.”4 Football was the first sport to bring him them fame he was so uncomfortable with. He began appearing in national headlines in 1908 but he became a star in 1911, earning a spot on sportswriter Walter Camp’s All-American team.5

The social significance of games against Harvard, and eventually, Army drew the attention of the national press. Here was a group of Indians playing a completely new brand of football under coach “Pop” Warner that depended on speed and misdirection (even employing the forward pass) and defeating both the intellectual elite and the future leaders of the armed forces that only a generation before were still fighting Native Americans on the Western plains. In a highly publicized game against Army in 1912 (a team that featured future President Dwight Eisenhower at half-back) the New York Times focused its coverage on Thorpe. “Standing out resplendent in a galaxy of Indian stars was Jim Thorpe,” the paper declared.

“The big Indian Captain added more luster to his already brilliant record, and at times the game itself was almost forgotten while the spectators gazed on Thorpe, the individual, to wonder at his prowess. To recount his notable performances in the complete overthrow of the Cadets would leave little space for other notable points of the conflict. He simply ran wild, while the cadets tried in vain to stop his progress. It was like trying to clutch a shadow.”6

Football first brought him fame, but it was his achievements in the 1912 Olympics that made him a national hero. Thorpe became the only man to ever win gold in both the decathlon and the pentathlon, a feat which has not been replicated since. His glory was short lived, however, when questions over his playing professional baseball resulted in the forfeiting of his amateur status and his medals. Thorpe then went on to play professional baseball in 1913, and would retire in 1919. His baseball career was solid, if unspectacular; the highlight being his .327 average in his final season. His football career was more successful. He signed with the Canton Bulldogs in 1915, won three championships and in 1920 was elected president of the American Professional Football Association, the forerunner of the NFL.7 As well as being named male athlete of the century in 1950, he was also named football player of the century that same year.

After his playing days, Thorpe struggled financially. He worked in Hollywood, often as an Indian extra, appearing as a terrified native in King Kong.8 In 1951, Burt Lancaster starred in a motion picture titled Jim Thorpe—All-American. Thorpe was hired on as an advisor. He died of cancer the next year.