Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

Jim Thorpe (1887-1953) was an Indigenous American athlete and a member of the Sac and Fox Nation. Thorpe is one of the most celebrated sports figures of the early 20th century, as he achieved prominence as a multi-sport athlete, excelling in track and field, football, and baseball. Thorpe attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he was a star on the track and football teams. His skill and athleticism in football helped legendary coach Pop Warner create the style of play that has come to define how we understand the game of football today.

Thorpe is best known for winning two gold medals in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, in the pentathlon and decathlon events. His performance in these events solidified his status as one of the greatest athletes of his time. In addition to his Olympic success, Thorpe had a distinguished football career, playing for various professional teams, including the Canton Bulldogs and the New York Giants as a renowned running back and kicker.

Despite his athletic achievements, Thorpe suffered from the racism he experienced as an Indigenous individual in late 19th- and early 20th-century America. He ran away from the horrific conditions of the schools for Indigenous Americans to which his parents sent him numerous times, and he was subjected to racist press and public sentiment throughout his college career. The biggest injustice he suffered was the stripping of his Olympic medals due to controversy over his status as an amateur when it came to light that he had played semiprofessional baseball for two months. Through the efforts of friends and family, Thorpe’s medals were reinstated in 1983, 30 years after his death and 80 years after he had received them.

Thorpe’s contribution to athletics does not end with his achievements. Today, the Jim Thorpe Award is presented to the best college defensive back in the nation who also displays the most sportsman-like conduct on and off the field, and in 1954, a town in Pennsylvania not far from the former the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was renamed Jim Thorpe in honor of the athlete.

Glenn Scobey “Pop” Warner (1871-1954) is heralded as one of the greatest American football coaches of all time. Many of his innovations, such as play-making, body-blocking, the three-point stance, and the “single-wing” formation, in addition to his development of fundamental strategies, are still used in the sport today. From his time at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Stanford University, the University of Pittsburgh, and elsewhere, Warner also still holds one of the best coaching records in college football history.

Warner is a complicated historical figure because it remains unclear whether he truly had his Carlisle School Indigenous players’ best interests at heart during his time as their coach or whether he used their athleticism and willingness to play to bring himself fame and fortune. Warner has been criticized for enforcing exhausting schedules and borderline abusive discipline on his players and supporting Carlisle’s efforts to have his players assimilate into white culture. He also participated in Carlisle’s “Outing Program,” which placed athletes with white families, weakening their own cultural and familial bonds.

Part of his legacy is the Pop Warner youth football and cheerleading program that originated in 1929 as a local program for Philadelphia’s youth. Today, there are thousands of youth football leagues operating in his name because of the enthusiasm and ingenuity he brought to the sport.

Richard Henry Pratt (1840-1924) was a Brigadier General in the United States Army and the founder and first superintendent of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. He was a captain in the US Army during the Civil War and helped assimilate the Indigenous American children into mainstream white American culture. His approach to education aimed at erasing traditional Indigenous practices and promoting Western values, including forcing students to cut their hair and adopt Western clothing. Pratt is a complicated historical figure because he was against the reservation system, which seems to indicate he supported Indigenous rights, but his school’s mission was, in his words, to “[k]ill the Indian […] and save the man” (29) in his students, showing that his views toward Indigenous people were fundamentally racist.