Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe was far and away the greatest athlete of his day. He played three sports professionally but excelled most at football, leading tiny Carlisle Institute to a national championship and starring for the Canton Bulldogs as a halfback, defensive back and kicker. A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he acheived his greatest fame by winning gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics. At the tender age of 24, Thorpe sailed with the American Olympic team to Antwerp, Belgium for the 1912 Olympic Games. Remarkably, he trained aboard the ship on the journey across sea. He blew away the competition in both the pentathlon and the decathlon and set records that would stand for decades. King Gustav V presented Thorpe with his gold medals for both accomplishments. "Before Thorpe could walk away, the king grabbed his hand and uttered the sentence that was to follow for the rest of his life.’Sir,' he declared, 'you are the greatest athlete in the world,' Thorpe, never a man to stand on ceremony, answered simple and honestly, 'Thanks King.'" 
He was wrongly stripped of his medals and subsequently lost his Olympic titles when it was found he was paid for playing two seasons of minor league baseball before competing in the games (thus violating the so-called amateur rules). In 1983, he was vindicated thirty years after his death, his medals were rightfully restored to his family members.

Thorpe was of mixed Native American and white ancestry. He was raised as a Sac and Fox, and named Wa-Tho-Huk, roughly translated as "Bright Path". He struggled with racism throughout much of his life and his accomplishments were publicized with headlines describing him as a "Redskin" and "Indian athlete." He also played on several All-American Indian teams throughout his career and barnstormed as a professional basketball player with a team composed entirely of Native Americans.

Did You Know?

• Believe it or not, Thorpe once hit 3 home runs into 3 different states in the same game. During a semi-pro baseball game in a ballpark on the Texas-Oklahoma-Arkansas border, he hit his first homer over the leftfield wall with the ball landing in Oklahoma, his second homer over the rightfield wall into Arkansas and his third homer of the game was an inside-the-park home run in centerfield, which was in Texas!

• Thorpe is one of two men in history who played for the New York Giants in two different sports. In football, he was the New York Giants' running back and in baseball he was the New York Giants' outfielder.

• 1998, Jim Thorpe again was honored with a stamp  by the U.S. Postal Service
• Thorpe played football professionally well past his prime, retiring in 1928 at age 41.

• Jim Thorpe played major and minor league baseball for 20 years, starting with the New York Giants in 1913 and later playing a number of other teams, including the Boston Braves and the Cincinnati Reds.

• Thorpe was .252 in his six seasons (1913-15, 1917-19) as an outfielder with the Giants, Cincinnati Reds and Boston Braves.

• Thorpe's best baseball season was his last, when he batted .327 in 60 games for Boston.

• Thorpe’s family wanted to bury him in Oklahoma and build a memorial for him there. Unfortunately, state officials refused permission. Thorpe’s widow Patricia heard about a small town in Pennsylvania called Mauch Chunk that was seeking a different name to increase town tourism. She struck a deal with the town and brought Thorpe’s remains to the tactfully renamed Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. There, a monument has been erected in his honor with the sentence, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world,” etched in the stone.