‘The best athlete in the world,’ Jim Thorpe, lost his two 1912 Olympic gold medals to a technicality (and, many argue, an injustice). Advocates fight to restore his status. Thorpe competed for the United States in 1912 as a member of the Sac and Fox Nation. At the time, the…
When the Olympic gold medalist Jim Thorpe died in 1953, his children held a traditional Indian burial ceremony on the Sac and Fox Reservation in Oklahoma. Mourners shared a meal as the great athlete’s body lay in full view inside a lodge. The ceremony came to an abrupt halt when…
The legend of Jim Thorpe and some misconceptions that still exist Before the 1912 Olympic decathlon, Jim Thorpe rarely competed in events such as the pole vault, shot put and javelin. But Thorpe was incredibly perceptive, a technique he sharpened watching horses gallop as a child. He would study their…
Jim Thorpe’s Sean Mendez wasn’t a well-known name in the pole vault around the Schuylkill League when the season began. That quickly changed. Mendez certainly opened some eyes at the Tamaqua Invitational on March 30 when he won the event with a final height of 11 feet, 6 inches, beating…
