Jim Thorpe: World's Greatest Athlete

Jim Thorpe: World's Greatest Athlete
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press | ISBN: 0806117451 | edition 1981 | PDF | 320 pages | 2,8 mb
On February 8, 1982, my wife, Dr. Florence Ridlon, and I founded the Jim Thorpe Foundation dedicated to the restoration of the Olympic awards of Jim Thorpe and the education of the public about his accomplishments. What had previously been a labor of love over a fifteen-year period then became a full-time occupation for both of us. With a projected 2 1/2 billion viewers slated to watch the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984, the timing was perfect to launch an all-out, albeit last-ditch, effort to restore the Olympic honors and, indeed, the integrity of the American Indian Jim Thorpe.
During my research for this book I was able to document three pieces of evidence that were crucial to Jim Thorpe's case. First, it was the Amateur Athletic Union, not the International Olympic Committee, as many believed, that stripped Jim of his medals. The AAU restored his amateur standing in 1973, thus making it reasonable for the IOC to follow suit and save face at the same time. Second, in 1913, Jim Thorpe was a ward of the United States government. Despite his status he was not provided with a lawyer to defend him against the charges leveled by the AAU. Third, Joe Libby, Jim's teammate at Carlisle Indian School confirmed that he, Jim, and Jesse Youngdeer were sent to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, to play summer baseball by the Carlisle coach, Glenn S. ("Pop") Warner.

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