With the NFL celebrating 100 years, the history of football is not complete without mentioning legendary coach Pop Warner and superstar athlete Jim Thorpe. But the story of football is also the story of American repression of Native Americans through Indian Schools and the stated policy of eradicating the "savage" and replacing his culture with that of white America.
A Native American from Oklahoma, Jim Thorpe was always a gifted athlete, but the loss of his twin brother when they were young caused a pain he never truly recovered from. When he arrived at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1904 after stints at other schools, he saw football and decided he had to play. Pop Warner was an average football player who developed innovative tactics and improved the game. He came to Carlisle to guide their football program, and ended up changing the whole game for the better with innovations such as the forward pass and the fake plays.
Pop Warner at first refused to let Jim play, but after observing his speed, Jim joined the Carlisle team and soon became its superstar. Carlisle played against football powerhouses Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, and despite racist taunts and overt persecution of Native Americans, the team steadily improved until it defeated the top four teams in one season and earned an 11-1 record. Jim Thorpe himself participated in the 1912 Olympics, where he won the Pentathlon and the Decathlon, the first Native American to win a gold medal for a country where he was not even considered a citizen. He also played professional baseball and basketball, but it is his performances on the football field, where he was twice nominated as an All-American, where he made a lasting legacy.
This book is the story of two men, but it is also the story of a whole system designed to eliminate Native American voices and cultures. Fans of historical stories and of amazing feats of athleticism will be fascinated to watch how Jim Thorpe and his teammates overcame adversity and racism and fought for the right to be themselves.
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