The Tartan, formerly known as The Carnegie Tartan, is the original student newspaper of Carnegie Mellon University. Publishing since 1906, it is one of Carnegie Mellon's largest and oldest student organizations. It currently has over 170 student members, who contribute on a weekly basis. It is funded by advertisements and the university's student activities fee.

Sections[link]

There are two sections in The Tartan. One is a standard broadsheet news section and the other is an entertainment, arts, and living tabloid section called Pillbox.

News[link]

The News section consists of the front page and two or three other pages of timely, campus-focused content covering events, accomplishments and disappointments of the student body. The section's semi-regular features include news analysis, personality profiles, investigative reporting, and trend reporting. Its regular features include news briefs, a preview of the university's lectures, featured photographs of campus events, and a weekly dose of topical statistics.

Forum[link]

The Forum section is where Carnegie Mellon's campus discusses current issues. It contains letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, a "Leadership Perspectives" column that features input from student leaders, and articles from the campus community. It also contains one or more editorial pieces that are the general opinion of the Editorial Staff.

Science & Technology[link]

This section covers the school's many achievements in the fields of robotics, computer science, biology, physics, and other fields, as well as lectures and events with a technology or science slant. As Carnegie Mellon is a research university, The Tartan's "SciTech" section holds a special significance to the newspaper's total university coverage. Envisioned in 2000, the SciTech section originally ran on alternate weeks with a Business section. However, in 2003 the Business section was discontinued and SciTech became a weekly section of the newspaper.

Sports[link]

This section covers the weekly games, home and away, of Carnegie Mellon's sports teams, including intramural ones. Its features include analysis of professional sports leagues, commentaries, and a schedule of upcoming games and events.

Pillbox[link]

Pillbox is The Tartan 's arts, living, and entertainment section. As an insert accompanying the broadsheet, it has its own comics editor in addition to a section editor. Pillbox covers the latest restaurant openings in the Oakland, Shadyside, and Squirrel Hill neighborhoods, campus fashion, on-campus concerts, dramatic performances, and organizations. It also contains music and movie reviews, and larger feature articles that encompass a greater scope.

The second section of the paper has undergone several iterations, especially in the past 15 years. In the 1980s, the subsections included Features and Diversions. Features contained information on student living, campus life, and city life. Diversions focused specifically on Arts and Entertainment. At this time the second section was also a broadsheet.

In 2000, as part of the newspaper's redesign several changes were made. Since the lines between Features and Diversions were already blurred, they were merged into an Arts and Living Section. SciTech and Business made up another subsection. Eventually Business was discontinued, and Arts and Living became a tabloid section, Pillbox.

Comics[link]

There is a comics section in Pillbox, with many student-drawn comics and a few syndicated comics.

Staff[link]

The staff of The Tartan comprises two major levels, the Editorial Staff and regular staff.

Editorial Staff[link]

The Editorial Staff constitutes the core of The Tartan's contributors, making decisions about the articles, photographs, and art pieces submitted by the regular staff. The Editorial Staff is divided into editors and managers. Editors deal directly with the assigning, production, and processing of content, while managers coordinate their staffs to provide a service to the publication.

As a general rule, people are voted into the Editorial Staff by their peers.

Editorial Board[link]

The Editorial Board is a subgroup of the Editorial Staff, charged with formulating and communicating the newspaper's formal opinion every week. Each issue contains three editorials, marked "From the Editorial Board," all of which are written by Editorial Board members and vetted by the entire Board before publication. The Board is appointed by the Editor-in-Chief and approved by a majority vote of the Editorial Staff.

Regular Staff[link]

When a student first joins the newspaper as a writer, he or she is considered a junior staff writer. After contributing to six issues or having two published articles in each of two separate sections, the student becomes a full staff writer. After a year of regular contribution, the staff writer is eligible to become a senior staff writer (a position which confers no tangible benefits, but senior staff do get their names in the masthead each week).

Events and controversies[link]

A brief independence: 2002–2004[link]

In 2002, The Tartan's leadership decided to leave the student funding process of Carnegie Mellon University. Advertising revenues were healthy, and the paper's leadership was confident that the paper could remain independent so long as future leadership maintained a strong focus on maintaining and growing revenue from advertising and subscriptions. Breaking away was also an attempt to remove the ethical burden of reporting on the same entities that allocated funds to the newspaper. The paper failed to grow and maintain its advertising income, and accumulated a large amount of debt by 2004. The Tartan rejoined the student funding process in the spring of 2004.

Missing website: 2004[link]

In the spring of 2004, a disgruntled staff member accessed The Tartan's servers and removed the code for The Tartan 's Web site, along with the content of the site, shortly after leaving a meeting in which the editor-in-chief failed to nominate him for a contributing editor position. A complaint was filed with campus police, and the University held a disciplinary hearing, in which the committee determined the code belonged to the former staff member. Since then, The Tartan has rebuilt its internal and external Web sites from scratch.

Controversy: April - November 2004[link]

The Tartan has traditionally published an annual joke issue called the "Natrat" (Tartan spelled backwards) on April Fool's Day. In the 2004 edition, a comic containing racist material, along with other items deemed offensive by much of the community, was published. The ensuing media attention and campus outcry^[1][2] forced the editor-in-chief and the managing editor to resign. The artist of the offending cartoon was also dismissed from the newspaper.^[3]

In November 2004, The Tartan declined to run an advertisement submitted by conservative writer David Horowitz. Horowitz has gained publicity by placing or attempting to place similar ads in a number of student newspapers across the country. This action caused The Tartan to once again gain media attention, this time drawing fire from conservatives who viewed the paper as having a liberal agenda.^[4][5]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Tartan
• ScheduleMan

v t e Carnegie Mellon University Academics Carnegie Institute of Technology (engineering) • College of Fine Arts • H. John Heinz III College • Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences • Mellon College of Science • School of Computer Science • Tepper School of Business • Margaret Morrison Carnegie College (defunct) Branch Campuses Australia • Silicon Valley • Qatar Student life Traditions • Greek Life • Kiltie Band • Scotch'n'Soda • Miller Gallery • The Tartan • WRCT • University Athletic Association Research Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center • Software Engineering Institute • Robotics Institute • Human Computer Interaction Institute • Language Technologies Institute • Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse • Carnegie School People Andrew Carnegie • Mellon family • Alumni and faculty Projects and legacies Alice • Andrew Project • BLISS • CMMI • Mach • 3M computer

The Classic (Hangul: 클래식; Keulraesik) is a 2003 South Korean melodrama / romance film directed by Kwak Jae-yong.

Plot[link]

The film tells the parallel love stories of a mother and daughter. The story of the mother is told partially in flashbacks.

The movie starts in the present day. The daughter, Ji-hye (Son Ye-jin), is cleaning-up around her house when she comes across a box full of old letters and a diary that detail the story of her mother, Joo-hee (who is also played by Son Ye-jin). Periodically in the movie, Ji-hye reads one of these letters, which starts a flashback scene in which the story of the mother is told. These flashbacks are intertwined with Ji-hye's own story, in which she falls for a fellow student, Sang-min (Zo In Sung), who is involved with the school theater.

The movie tells the story of both relationships. The mother, Joo-hee, visits the countryside as a student one summer and meets Joon-ha (Jo Seung-woo). Together they explore the countryside, playing near a river which they both will always remember as their special place. When a storm starts they take shelter together under a tree, but not before Joo-hee twists her ankle and is rendered helpless. Joon-ha carries her on his back and they struggle home, only to be confronted by her angry parents. Before they separate, Joo-hee gives him a necklace, which he keeps close as a precious reminder of their time together.

Unfortunately, as often happens in affairs of the heart, a third party prevents any deepening of their relationship. Joo-hee has been promised by her parents as a bride to Tae-soo, Joon-ha's friend. But Tae-soo, a noble friend, finds out about Joo-hee and Joon-ha's attraction for each other and helps the two communicate secretly by letting them use his own name in place of Joon-ha's in their letters. When Tae-soo's father finds this out, however, he beats Tae-soo. Tae-soo tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide so that his two friends can be together.

Meanwhile, in the present, Ji-hye falls for Sang-min in whom her friend Soo-kyeong is also very interested, but he seems not to notice. Then, in a sweet scene, they take shelter from the rain together under the same tree. He uses his coat to cover both of them and escorts her to where she needs to go. The moment, while magical, does not go anywhere as she feels his help was only due to his generous nature and not from any feelings for her on his part.

Back in the past, Joon-ha is guilt-ridden over his friend's attempted suicide and Joo-hee's own guilt. Determined to prevent any more hurt to her, Joon-ha joins the army and goes to Vietnam. There he loses his eyesight while he tries to retrieve the necklace Joo-hee had given him. When he returns to Korea, he meets again with Joo-hee, and, trying to hide his blindness, convinces her he has married in the hope she will move on with her life. Though heart broken that their relationship cannot continue, she does move on and eventually marries Tae-soo, Joon-ha's kind friend. After they have been married for several years and have a young daughter (Ji-hye) Joo-hee is approached by friends of Joon-ha, who relate Joon-ha's last wish: that his ashes be scattered by Joo-hee in the river, now a reservoir, where they first met. She then finds out that Joon-ha hadn't married, but he later did after Tae-soo and Joo-hee were married. She was told that he had a son also. The heart-break is too much and she cries.

In the present, Ji-hye's own story unfolds. Sang-min reveals his true feelings for Ji-hye - feelings that mirror her own. It is also revealed that their taking shelter together during the storm was no accident: he had purposely left his umbrella behind in a shop so that he could join her under the tree. Then, when Ji-hye pensively reveals her mother's story to him, tears stream down his face. Silently he lifts a necklace from around his neck and places it around hers. It is the necklace that Ji-hye's mother, Joo-hee, had given to Joon-ha when they met. The circle is completed: Joo-hee's daughter and Joon-ha's son have fallen in love.

Cast[link]

• Son Ye-jin in dual role as Ji-hye and Joo-hee (Ji-hye's mother)
• Jo Seung-woo as Joon-ha
• Zo In Sung as Sang-min
• Lee Ki-woo as Tae-soo (friend of Joon-ha)
• Lee Soo-in as Soo-kyeong (friend of Ji-hye)
• Seo Yeong-hee as Na-hee (friend of Joo-hee)
• Lim Ye Jin as Shopkeeper

Development[link]

Several of the school scenes were filmed at various universities in Korea. Notably, the library was in Kyung Hee University. There are many parallels between the flashback and present day stories. In the flashbacks, Joon Ha writes letters in the name of his friend Tae-soo to their mutual love interest. In the present day, Ji-hye writes letters in the name of her friend to their mutual love interest. In the flashbacks, Joo-hee has an annoying female friend that Joon-ha is initially set up with. In the present day, Ji-hye also has an annoying friend that interferes with her relationship. Also, Joo-hee and Ji-hye both receive the same poem from the people they love: "When the sun shines...".

Reception[link]

The Classic was nominated at the Hong Kong Film Awards in the category Best Asian Film in 2004.^[3]

Son Ye-jin received several awards for her performance in the film:^[4]

• 2003 40th Daejong sang Awards: Best New Actress (The Classic)
• 2003 39th PaekSang Arts Awards: Best New Actress (The Classic)
• 2003 24th Blue Dragon Film Awards - Most Favourite Star (The Classic, Crazy First Love)
• 2004 9th Moscow International Love Movie Awards: Best Couple (The Classic)

Music[link]

The film relies heavily on music to help convey emotion.

Korean Songs in the film:

• 그랬나봐 ("Geuraetna pwa" - World without love) - performer: Kim Hyung Joong
• 고백 ("Gobaek" - Confession) - performer: Delispice - played during the art gallery scene
• 너에게 난 나에게 넌 ("Neoehgeh nan naehgeh neon" - Me to you, you to me) - performer: Jatanpung - played during both special umbrella scenes
• 너무 아픈 사랑은 사랑이아니었음을 ("Neomu apeun sarangeun sarangee anieosseumeul" - It wasn't love if it hurt so much) - performer: Kim Kwang Suk - played during train and last meeting scenes
• 사랑하면 할수록 ("Saranghamyon halsoorok" - If we are in love, then...) - Played in different instrumental versions throughout the film - always at emotional moments. It is sung in the final scenes by performer Han Song Min. There is also a Mandarin version of this song titled "Hui Se Kong Jian" (灰色空間 in Mandarin) which is sung by Taiwanese singer Show Luo in Taiwanese drama called "The Outsider II".

The piano piece performed by Joo-Hee on stage is Beethoven's Piano Sonata 8, movement 2 Pathetique Sonata.

Pachelbel's Canon in D was also used as the background music. This same music was featured in the director's earlier film, My Sassy Girl.

Some American songs were used as well.

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Classic at the Korean Movie Database
• The Classic at the Internet Movie Database
• The Classic at HanCinema

Jim Thorpe

Thorpe posing in his football uniform in the late 1910s or early 1920s
Personal information
Date of birth	(1888-05-28)May 28, 1888
Place of birth	Prague, Oklahoma, USA
Date of death	March 28, 1953(1953-03-28) (aged 64)
Place of death	Lomita, California, USA
Career information
Position(s)	Back
College	Carlisle Indian
Jersey number	31, 2, 1
Career highlights
Honors	All-Pro selection (1923) NFL 1920s All-Decade Team
Stats
Playing stats	DatabaseFootball
Coaching stats	DatabaseFootball
Team(s) as a player
1915–1917 1919–1920 1921 1922–1923 1924 1925 1925 1926 1926 1928	Canton Bulldogs Canton Bulldogs Cleveland Indians Oorang Indians Rock Island Independents New York Giants Rock Island Independents Tampa Cardinals Canton Bulldogs Chicago Cardinals
Team(s) as a coach/administrator
1915 1915–1920 1921 1922–1923 1925	Indiana Canton Bulldogs Cleveland Indians Oorang Indians Tampa Cardinals
College Football Hall of Fame
Pro Football Hall of Fame, 1963

Medal record
Men’s athletics
Competitor for the United States
Olympic Games
Gold	1912 Stockholm	Pentathlon
Gold	1912 Stockholm	Decathlon

Jim Thorpe
Outfielder
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
April 14, 1913 for the New York Giants
Last MLB appearance
September 25, 1919 for the Boston Braves
Career statistics
Batting average	.252
Home runs	7
Runs batted in	82
Hits	176
Teams
New York Giants (1913–1915, 1917) Cincinnati Reds (1917) New York Giants (1918–1919) Boston Braves (1919)

James Francis "Jim" Thorpe (Sac and Fox (Sauk): Wa-Tho-Huk, translated to "Bright Path")^[1] (May 28, 1888 – March 28, 1953)^[2] was an American athlete of mixed ancestry (Caucasian and Native American). Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals for the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football (collegiate and professional), and also played professional baseball and basketball. He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he was paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the amateurism rules. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals.

Of Native American and European American ancestry, Thorpe grew up in the Sac and Fox nation in Oklahoma. He played as part of several All-American Indian teams throughout his career, and "barnstormed" as a professional basketball player with a team composed entirely of American Indians.

He played professional sports until age 41, the end of his sports career coinciding with the start of the Great Depression. Thorpe struggled to earn a living after that, working several odd jobs. Thorpe suffered from alcoholism, and lived his last years in failing health and poverty.

In a poll of sports fans conducted by ABC Sports, Thorpe was voted the Greatest Athlete of the Twentieth Century out of 15 other athletes including Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Jack Nicklaus and Michael Jordan.^[3][4]

Early life[link]

Information about Thorpe's birth, name, and ethnic background varies widely.^[5] He was born in Indian Territory, but no birth certificate has been found. Thorpe was generally considered born on May 28, 1888,^[2] near the town of Prague, Oklahoma.^[6] He was christened "Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe" in the Catholic Church.

Thorpe's parents were both of mixed-race ancestry. His father, Hiram Thorpe, had an Irish father and a Sac and Fox Indian mother. His mother, Charlotte Vieux, had a French father and a Potawatomi mother, a descendant of Chief Louis Vieux. Thorpe was raised as a Sac and Fox, and his native name was Wa-Tho-Huk, translated as "path lighted by great flash of lightning" or, more simply, "Bright Path".^[5] As was the custom for Sac and Fox, Thorpe was named for something occurring around the time of his birth, in this case the light brightening the path to the cabin where he was born. Thorpe's parents were both Roman Catholic, a faith which Thorpe observed throughout his adult life.^[7]

Thorpe attended the Sac and Fox Indian Agency School in Stroud, Oklahoma, with his twin brother Charlie. Charlie helped Jim through school, but died of pneumonia when they were nine years old.^[8] Thereafter, Thorpe ran away from school on several occasions. Hiram Thorpe then sent him to the Haskell Institute, an "Indian" boarding school in Lawrence, Kansas, so that he would not run away again.^[9] When his mother died of childbirth complications two years later,^[10] Thorpe became depressed. After several arguments with his father, the teenaged Thorpe left home to work on a horse ranch.^[9]

In 1904, the sixteen year old Thorpe returned to his father and decided to attend Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There, his athletic ability was recognized and he was coached by Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner, one of the most influential coaches of early American football history.^[11] Later that year, Hiram Thorpe died from gangrene poisoning after being wounded in a hunting accident.^[10] Thorpe again dropped out of school. He resumed farm work for a few years and then returned to Carlisle Indian Industrial School.^[9]

Amateur career[link]

College career[link]

Jim Thorpe in Carlisle Indian Industrial School uniform, about 1909

Thorpe reportedly began his athletic career at Carlisle in 1907 when he walked past the track and beat the school's high jumpers with an impromptu 5-ft 9-in jump while still wearing street clothes.^[12] His earliest recorded track and field results are from 1907. He also competed in football, baseball, lacrosse and even ballroom dancing, winning the 1912 inter-collegiate ballroom dancing championship.^[13]

Reportedly, Pop Warner was hesitant to allow Thorpe, his best track and field athlete, to compete in a physical game such as football.^[14] Thorpe, however, convinced Warner to let him participate in some plays against the school team's defense; Warner assumed he would be tackled easily and give up the idea.^[14] Thorpe "ran around past and through them not once, but twice."^[14] He then walked over to Warner and said, "Nobody is going to tackle Jim," while flipping him the ball.^[14]

Thorpe gained nationwide attention for the first time in 1911.^[15] As a running back, defensive back, placekicker, and punter, Thorpe scored all of his football team's points—four field goals and a touchdown—in an 18–15 upset of Harvard, a top ranked team in those early days of the National Collegiate Athletic Association .^[14] His team finished the season 11–1. In 1912, Carlisle won the national collegiate championship largely as a result of his efforts – he scored 25 touchdowns and 198 points during the season.^[11]

Carlisle's 1912 record included a 27–6 victory over Army.^[6] In that game, Thorpe's 92-yard touchdown was nullified by a teammate's penalty; the next play, Thorpe scored a 97-yard touchdown.^[16] Future President Dwight Eisenhower, who played against him that season, recalled of Thorpe in a 1961 speech:

Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw.^[11]

Thorpe was awarded All-American honors in both 1911 and 1912.^[6]

Football was—and would remain—Thorpe's favorite sport.^[17] He competed only sporadically in track and field. Nevertheless, track and field became the sport in which Thorpe gained his greatest fame.

In the spring of 1912 he started training for the Olympics. He had confined his efforts to the jumps, the hurdles and the shot-put but now he undertook the pole vault, the javelin, discus, the hammer and the fifty-six-pound weight. In the Olympic trials held at Celtic Park in New York, his all-round ability stood out in all these events and so he riveted a claim to a place on the team that went to Sweden.^[6]

Olympic career[link]

Thorpe at the 1912 Summer Olympics

For the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, two new multi-event disciplines were included, the pentathlon and the decathlon. A pentathlon based on the ancient Greek event had been organized at the 1906 Summer Olympics. The 1912 version consisted of the long jump, the javelin throw, 200-meter dash, the discus throw and the 1500-meter run.

The decathlon was a relatively new event of modern athletics, although it had been part of American track meets since the 1880s and a version had been featured on the program of the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. The events of the new decathlon differed slightly from the American version. Both events seemed appropriate for Thorpe, who was so versatile that he alone had constituted Carlisle's team in several track meets.^[6] He could run the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat, the 220 in 21.8 seconds, the 440 in 51.8 seconds, the 880 in 1:57, the mile in 4:35, the 120-yard high hurdles in 15 seconds, and the 220-yard low hurdles in 24 seconds.^[6] He could long jump 23 ft 6 in and high-jump 6 ft 5 in.^[6] He could pole vault 11 feet, put the shot 47 ft 9 in, throw the javelin 163 feet, and throw the discus 136 feet.^[6]

Thorpe entered the U.S. Olympic trials for both the pentathlon and the decathlon. He won the awards easily, winning three events, and was named to the pentathlon team, which also included future International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage. There were only a few candidates for the decathlon team, and the trials were cancelled.

His schedule in the Olympics was busy. Along with the decathlon and pentathlon, he competed in the long jump and high jump. The first competition was the pentathlon; Thorpe won four of the five events and placed third in the javelin, an event in which he had not competed before 1912. Although the pentathlon was primarily decided on place points, points were also earned for the marks achieved in the individual events. He won the gold medal. The same day, Thorpe qualified for the high jump final. He placed fourth and also took seventh place in the long jump.

Thorpe's final event was the decathlon, his first—and as it turned out, only—Olympic decathlon. Strong competition from local favorite Hugo Wieslander was expected. Thorpe, however, easily defeated Wieslander by more than 700 points. He placed in the top four of all ten events. Thorpe's Olympic record of 8,413 points would stand for nearly two decades.^[12] Overall, Thorpe won eight of the 15 individual events of the pentathlon and decathlon.

As was the custom of the day, the medals were presented to the athletes during the closing ceremonies of the games. Along with the two gold medals, Thorpe also received two challenge prizes, which were donated by King Gustav V of Sweden for the decathlon and Czar Nicholas II of Russia for the pentathlon. Several sources recount that, when awarding Thorpe his prize, King Gustav said, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world," to which Thorpe replied, "Thanks, King."^[18][19]

Thorpe's successes had not gone unnoticed at home, and he was honored with a ticker-tape parade on Broadway.^[18] He remembered later, "I heard people yelling my name, and I couldn't realize how one fellow could have so many friends."^[18]

Apart from his track and field appearance, Thorpe also played in one of two exhibition baseball games at the 1912 Olympics, which featured two teams composed of U.S. track and field athletes. It was not Thorpe's first try at baseball, as the public would soon learn.

All-Around Champion[link]

After his victories at the Olympic Games in Sweden, on September 2, 1912, 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 Championship. Competing against Bruno Brodd of the Irish American Athletic Club, and J. Bredemus of Princeton University, he won seven of the ten events contested, and came in second in the remaining three. With a total point score of 7,476 points, Thorpe broke the previous record of 7,385 points set in 1909, (also set at Celtic Park), by Martin Sheridan, the champion athlete of the Irish American Athletic Club.^[20] Sheridan, a five-time Olympic gold medalist, was present to watch his record broken, and approached Thorpe after the event. He shook his hand saying, "Jim my boy, you're a great man. I never expect to look upon a finer athlete." Sheridan told a reporter from The New York World, "Thorpe is the greatest athlete that ever lived. He has me beaten fifty ways. Even when I was in my prime, I could not do what he did today."^[21]

Controversy[link]

In 1913, strict rules regarding amateurism were in effect for athletes participating in the Olympics. Athletes who received money prizes for competitions, were sports teachers, or had competed previously against professionals, were not considered amateurs and were barred from competition.

In late January 1913, the Worcester Telegram published a story announcing that Thorpe had played professional baseball, and other U.S. newspapers followed up the story.^[18][22] Thorpe had indeed played professional baseball in the Eastern Carolina League for Rocky Mount, North Carolina, in 1909 and 1910, receiving meager pay; reportedly as little as US$2 ($50 today) a game and as much as $35 ($873 today) a week.^[23] College players, in fact, regularly spent summers playing professionally, but most used aliases, unlike Thorpe.^[11]

Although the public did not seem to care much about Thorpe's past,^[24] the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), and especially its secretary James Edward Sullivan, took the case very seriously.^[25] Thorpe wrote a letter to Sullivan, in which he admitted playing professional baseball:^[18]

His letter did not help. The AAU decided to withdraw Thorpe's amateur status retroactively and asked the International Olympic Commission (IOC) to do the same. Later that year, the IOC unanimously decided to strip Thorpe of his Olympic titles, medals, and awards, and declared him a professional.

Although Thorpe had played for money, the AAU and IOC did not follow the rules for disqualification. The rulebook for the 1912 Olympics stated that protests had to be made within 30 days from the closing ceremonies of the games.^[16] The first newspaper reports did not appear until January 1913, about six months after the Stockholm Games had concluded.^[16] There is also some evidence that Thorpe's amateur status had been questioned long before the Olympics, but the AAU had ignored the issue until being confronted with it in 1913.

The only positive element of this affair for Thorpe was that, as soon as the news was reported that he had been declared a professional, he received offers from professional sports clubs.^[26]

Professional career[link]

Baseball free agent[link]

Because the minor league team that last held Jim Thorpe's contract had disbanded in 1910, he found himself in the rare position of being a sought after free agent at the major league level during the era of the reserve clause, and thus had a choice of baseball teams for which to play.^[27] In January 1913 Thorpe turned down a starting position with the American League bottom dweller Saint Louis Browns, choosing instead to join the 1912 National League champion New York Giants. The Giants, with Thorpe participating in 19 of 151 games, would repeat as the 1913 National League champion. Immediately following the Giants October loss of the 1913 World Series, Thorpe and the Giants joined the Chicago White Sox for a world tour.^[28] Barnstorming across the United States and then around the world, Thorpe was the celebrity of the tour.^[29] Thorpe's presence increased the publicity, attendance and gate receipts for the tour. He met with Pope Pius X, Abbas II Hilmi Bey (the last khedive of Egypt), and played before 20,000 people in London including King George V. While in Rome, Thorpe was filmed wrestling with another baseball player on the floor of the Coliseum. No copy of that film is known to exist.

Baseball, football, and basketball[link]

Thorpe signed with the New York Giants baseball club in 1913 and played sporadically with them as an outfielder for three seasons. After playing in the minor leagues with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1916,^[30] he returned to the Giants in 1917 but was sold to the Cincinnati Reds early in the season. In the "double no-hitter" between Fred Toney of the Reds and Hippo Vaughn of the Chicago Cubs, Thorpe drove in the winning run in the 10th inning.^[31] Late in the season, he was sold back to the Giants. Again, he played sporadically for the Giants in 1918 and was traded to the Boston Braves on May 21, 1919, for Pat Ragan. In his career, he amassed 91 runs scored, 82 runs batted in and a .252 batting average over 289 games.^[32] He continued to play baseball with teams in the minor leagues until 1922.

But Thorpe had not abandoned football either. He first played professional football in 1913, 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.^[33] By 1915, Thorpe had signed with the Canton Bulldogs They paid him $250 ($5,743 today) a game, a tremendous wage at the time.^[34] Before Thorpe's signing, Canton was averaging 1,200 fans a game; 8,000 showed up for his debut against the Massillon Tigers.^[34] The team won titles in 1916, 1917, and 1919. Thorpe reportedly ended the 1919 championship game by kicking a wind-assisted 95-yard punt from his team's own 5-yard line, effectively putting the game out of reach.^[34] In 1920, the Bulldogs were one of 14 teams to form the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which would become the National Football League (NFL) two years later. Thorpe was nominally the APFA's first president; however, he spent most of the year playing for Canton and a year later was replaced by Joseph Carr.^[35] He continued to play for Canton, coaching the team as well. Between 1921 and 1923, Thorpe helped organize and played for the LaRue, Ohio, (Marion County, Ohio) Oorang Indians, an all-Native American team.^[36] Although the team's record was 3–6 in 1922,^[37] and 1–10 in 1923,^[38] Thorpe played well and was selected for the Green Bay Press-Gazette's first All-NFL team in 1923 (the Press-Gazette's team would later be formalized by the NFL as the league's official All-NFL team in 1931).^[39]

Thorpe never played for an NFL championship team. He retired from professional football at age 41,^[8] having played 52 NFL games for six teams from 1920 to 1928.

Until 2005, most of Thorpe's biographers were unaware of his basketball career.^[40] A ticket discovered in an old book that year revealed his career in basketball. By 1926, he was the main feature of the "World Famous Indians" of LaRue, which sponsored traveling football, baseball, and basketball teams. "Jim Thorpe and His World-Famous Indians" barnstormed for at least two years (1927–28) in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Marion, Ohio. Although pictures of Thorpe in his WFI basketball uniform were printed on postcards and published in newspapers, this period of his life was not well documented.

Jim Thorpe

Marriage and family[link]

In 1913, Thorpe married Iva Miller,^[6] whom he had met at Carlisle. They had four children: Jim Jr. (who died at age 2), Gale, Charlotte and Grace.^[6] Miller filed for divorce from Thorpe in 1925, claiming desertion.^[41]

In 1926, Thorpe married Freeda V. Kirkpatrick (September 19, 1905 – March 2, 2007). She was working for the manager of the baseball team for which he was playing at the time.^[42] They had four sons: Carl, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army,^[43] William, Richard and John "Jack".^[6] Kirkpatrick divorced Thorpe in 1941 after 15 years of marriage.

Lastly, Thorpe married Patricia Askew, who was with him when he died.

Later life[link]

After his athletic career, Thorpe struggled to provide for his family. He found it difficult to work a non-sports job and never held a job for an extended period of time. During the Great Depression in particular, Thorpe had various jobs, among others as an extra for several movies, usually playing an American Indian chief in Westerns. He also worked as a construction worker, a doorman (bouncer), a security guard, and a ditch digger, and he briefly joined the United States Merchant Marine in 1945.^[44][45] Thorpe was a chronic alcoholic during his later life.^[46]

By the 1950s, Thorpe had no money left. When he was hospitalized for lip cancer in 1950, he was admitted as a charity case.^[47] At a press conference announcing the procedure, Thorpe's wife Patricia wept and pleaded for help, saying, "[W]e're broke.... Jim has nothing but his name and his memories. He has spent money on his own people and has given it away. He has often been exploited."^[47]

Death[link]

In early 1953, Thorpe suffered his third heart failure, while eating dinner with his wife Patricia in their home in Lomita, California. He was briefly revived by artificial respiration and was able to speak to those around him, but lost consciousness shortly afterward and died on March 28 at the age of 64.^[6]

Racism[link]

Thorpe, whose parents were both half Caucasian, was raised as an American Indian. His accomplishments occurred during a period of racial inequality in the United States. It has often been suggested that his medals were stripped because of his ethnicity.^[48] While it is difficult to prove this, the public comment at the time largely reflected this view.^[49] At the time Thorpe won his gold medals, not all Native Americans were recognized as US citizens. (The US government had wanted them to make concessions to adopt European-American ways to receive such recognition.) Citizenship was not granted to all American Indians until 1924.^[50]

While Thorpe attended Carlisle, students' ethnicity was used for marketing purposes.^[51] A photograph of Thorpe and the 1911 football team emphasized the racial differences between the competing athletes. The inscription on the football reads, "1911, Indians 18, Harvard 15."^[52] Additionally, the school and journalists often categorized sporting competitions as conflicts of Indians against whites. Newspaper headings such as "Indians Scalp Army 27–6" or "Jim Thorpe on Rampage" made stereotypical journalistic play of the Indian nature of Carlisle's football team.^[51] The first notice of Thorpe in The New York Times was headlined "Indian Thorpe in Olympiad.; Redskin from Carlisle Will Strive for Place on American Team";^[15] his accomplishments were described in a similar racial context by other newspapers and sportswriters throughout his life.^[53]

Legacy[link]

Olympic awards reinstated[link]

Over the years, supporters of Thorpe attempted to have his Olympic titles reinstated.^[54] US Olympic officials, including former teammate and later president of the IOC Avery Brundage, rebuffed several attempts, with Brundage once saying, "Ignorance is no excuse."^[55] Most persistent were the author Robert Wheeler and his wife, Florence Ridlon. They succeeded in having the AAU and United States Olympic Committee (USOC) overturn its decision and restore Thorpe's amateur status prior to 1913.^[56]

In 1982, Wheeler and Ridlon established the Jim Thorpe Foundation and gained support from the U.S. Congress. Armed with this support and evidence from 1912 proving that Thorpe's disqualification had occurred after the 30-day time period allowed by Olympics rules, they succeeded in making the case to the IOC. In October 1982, the IOC Executive Committee approved Thorpe's reinstatement.^[23] In an unusual ruling, they declared that Thorpe was co-champion with Bie and Wieslander, although both of these athletes had always said they considered Thorpe to be the only champion. In a ceremony on January 18, 1983, the IOC presented two of Thorpe's children, Gale and Bill, with commemorative medals.^[23] Thorpe's original medals had been held in museums, but they had been stolen and have never been recovered.^[57]

Honors[link]

Thorpe's monument, featuring the quote from Gustav V ("You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world."), still stands near the town named for him, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.^[10] The grave rests on mounds of soil from Thorpe's native Oklahoma and from the stadium in which he won his Olympic medals.^[58]

Thorpe's achievements received great acclaim from sports journalists, both during his lifetime and since his death. In 1950, an Associated Press poll of almost 400 sportswriters and broadcasters voted Thorpe the "greatest athlete" of the first half of the 20th century.^[59] That same year, the Associated Press named Thorpe the "greatest American football player" of the first half of the century.^[60] In 1999, the Associated Press placed him third on its list of the top athletes of the century, following Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan.^[61] ESPN ranked Thorpe seventh on their list of best North American athletes of the century.^[62]

Thorpe was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963, one of seventeen players in the charter class.^[63] Thorpe is memorialized in the Pro Football Hall of Fame rotunda with a larger-than-life statue. He was also inducted into halls of fame for college football, American Olympic teams, and the national track and field competition.^[11]

President Richard Nixon, as authorized by U.S. Senate Joint Resolution 73, proclaimed Monday, April 16, 1973 as "Jim Thorpe Day" to promote the nationwide recognition of Thorpe.^[64] In 1986, the Jim Thorpe Association established an award with Thorpe's name. The Jim Thorpe Award is given annually to the best defensive back in college football. The annual Thorpe Cup athletics meeting is named in his honor.^[65]

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania[link]

Thorpe's wife Patricia was angry after his death when the government of Oklahoma would not erect a memorial to honor him.^[66] When she heard that the small Pennsylvania towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk were desperately seeking to attract business, she made a deal with officials. The towns bought Thorpe's remains, erected a monument to him, merged and renamed the newly united town in his honor, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Thorpe had never been there.^[67] The monument site contains his tomb, two statues of him in athletic poses, and historical markers describing his life story.

In June 2010, Thorpe's son, Jack, filed a federal lawsuit against the borough of Jim Thorpe, seeking to have his father's remains returned to his homeland and re-interred near other family members in Oklahoma. Citing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Jack Thorpe is arguing to bring his father's remains to the reservation in Oklahoma. There Thorpe's remains would be buried near his father, sisters, and brother, and would be one mile away from the place he was born. Jack Thorpe says the agreement between his stepmother and borough officials was made against the wishes of other family members. They want him buried in Native American land.^[68][69]

In film[link]

In the 1930s, Thorpe appeared in several short films and features. Usually, his roles were cameo appearances as an Indian, although in the 1932 comedy, Always Kickin, Thorpe was prominently cast in a speaking part as himself, a kicking coach teaching young football players to drop-kick. In 1931, during the Great Depression, he sold the film rights to his life story to MGM for $1,500 ($23,000 today).^[70][71] The movie included archival footage of the 1912 and 1932 Olympics, as well as a banquet in which Thorpe was honored. Thorpe was seen in some long shots in the film; and one scene showed him as a coaching assistant. It was also distributed in the United Kingdom, where it was called Man of Bronze.

Thorpe was memorialized in the Warner Bros. film Jim Thorpe – All-American (1951) starring Burt Lancaster, with Billy Gray performing as Thorpe as a child. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz. Although there were rumors that Thorpe received no money, he was paid $15,000 by Warner Bros. plus a $2,500 donation toward an annuity for him by the studio head of publicity.^[72]

He is mentioned twice in Disney's 1973 film The World's Greatest Athlete.

Thorpe is featured as a ghost figure in the 1994 film WindRunner: A Spirited Journey, where he is portrayed by Russell Means.

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

	American football portal
	Baseball portal
	Olympics portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jim Thorpe

• Pro Football Hall of Fame member profile
• College Football Hall of Fame member profile
• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
• Jim Thorpe Association
• Jim Thorpe's bio, U.S. Olympic Team
• Jim Thorpe's IOC bio

(includes pictures of monument and statue)

• Jack McCallum, "The Regilding Of A Legend", Sports Illustrated, October 25, 1982
• Ongoing Research Project Uniform Numbers of the NFL Pre-1933
• Jim Thorpe House Museum
• Jim Thorpe, stars in 1932 film ALWAYS KICKIN'
• Jim Thorpe at the Internet Movie Database