Written by Beth Carter   

To Whom It May Concern:

This correspondence is a direct request for the International Olympic Committee to reinstate Jim Thorpe to full historical recognition for the 1912 Olympic Games in which he excelled to such a high degree. Replica medals to the family are fine and good, but putting his name back into historical registry is what is specified here. It is my understanding that the Committee still resists this last reconciliation.

I think it quite safe to assume of the Committees’ members both then and now that there is no point of reference to the extreme prejudice under which the Native American population of the United States still lives. Speculation upon that theme must be of the most rough, the most challenging aspects as the United Nations’ declaration of the year 2012 stated that the United States has done little to nothing to improve relations and eliminate social prejudice toward the Native Nations. Considered thusly, we must remove Thorpe’s case from over-generalizations as he was and still is an anomaly. It is by this status, his continued uniqueness, that he deserves to be in the upper echelon of Olympic history. Beyond all this which words are unable to convey real depth, the International Olympic Committee of that age broke its own rules to spitefully strip Thorpe of what he rightfully earned. The Olympic rules detailed such protest of any event must be made within thirty days of the closing ceremonies. The two seasons in which Thorpe played semi-professional ball for pittance was disclosed six months after the closing ceremonies. You may at this moment think this is an open-and-shut case. One’s mind can easily slam shut if one is unaware of the conditions under which the Natives, then as now, live. The Pine Ridge Reservation currently has an eighty percent unemployment rate. Those that think stripping Thorpe is still right and worthy because amateur status must be clearly defined and strictly upheld are completely unable to comprehend the systemic prejudice with which this act against Thorpe was carried out. Various classmates did as he did, but they played under fake names. Thorpe did not. Call that naïve if you want, but I see integrity. What little money he did make was only enough to get him from one game to the next, hardly professional pay rate even for his era. A man of his athletic caliber would catch anyone’s attention, yet no one put it together that this was one-and-the-same man until half a year later. This is a man who during collegiate events, unaware that an athlete was allowed to use his running strength to improve velocity in the javelin throw, took second place from a STANDING POSITION. He just picked it up and hurled it, securing second place. His records stood for decades, as you already know. It is said that Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played football against Thorpe in 1912, said, “. . . 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.” A picture exists of Thorpe during the Olympic Games in which he wore extra socks because he was given two different shoes to wear—one was too big. It is outrageous that an Olympic athlete was given mismatched shoes—unthinkable for a country who wants to win unless some sort of prejudice existed. However, Thorpe went on to place in the top four in all ten events of the decathlon. This record of 8,413 points would stand for nearly two decades. Overall, he won eight of fifteen events which comprised the pentathlon and decathlon. The Committee most certainly knows this. Much of America does not because Thorpe, thanks to the Amateur Athletic Union and the complicity of the Olympic Committee of that day has been obscured in our history. Martin Sheridan, a five-time Olympic gold medalist stated in September 2, 1912 to 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.”

One might try to say that for the purity of the Games, the thirty-day window for protest was rightly broken since Thorpe admitted his error to the president of the Amateur Athletic Union. His integrity in admitting his error was taken and used as a blunt instrument against the Native populations as a whole. His success in Sweden allowed the Native populations some measure of self-respect, some portion of worth which the white-led institutions found to be irksome without doubt. The Natives were being assimilated to some degree of success. Thorpe gave them some natural pride, and that could not be tolerated for long. The history of the re-education of Native children is more harsh than what is happening to the children of Tibet. Hitler studied what was done to the Native Americans to plan and organize his foray into history. These are no small things. They are pervasive to this day though mildly blunted by international genocide laws. Thorpe smoked the competition at every turn under ludicrous conditions which no other athlete worldwide in this day and age would ever allow or be expected to endure. The subtext of Thorpe’s victory and the ripples that made through prevailing power structures put the civilize world on its’ heels. Can I prove this? No. I don’t have to. The United Nations declaration against the United States does that for me. I am doubtless that given the temperament of the times the civilized world was given cause to wonder about the accepted culture and refinement of the age, millions of people worldwide pausing to wonder about society as a whole simply because this Native man, a half-breed, showed up everyone’s best athlete—and he came from nothing. He came from a “conquered” race whose noses were being rubbed in their own eliminations. We should wonder. It is right to do so. The planet stands at the brink of man-made destruction. Thorpe came from a denigrated people who would never allow such devastation to take place. They still live with the Earth. We “civilized societies” have nearly killed us all with finery and fluff, entertainment and hypocrisy all the while giving lip service to freedom and democracy. We, with our incredibly soft dispositions, spend our time fawning away with our video games, movies, and sitcoms while our scientists, politicians, and businessmen bicker about how to avoid changing. Our current athletes take steroids and hormones to come up to Thorpe’s level. I therefore ask you to seriously reconsider. Take the step toward global reconciliation with the indigenous that have shown us the glory of almost effortless human potential. Jim Thorpe Day is next Tuesday, April 16th. The stripping of Jim Thorpe is to my mind the first public, international severing of human dignity with the First Nations and must be the first to be mended. Some will point to Thorpe’s admission insistently while I and others like me will continue to point at Thorpe himself, the man that he was and the fact that he surpassed everyone’s expectations even in spite of the prevailing prejudice. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Beth Carter