Bright Path

A Sac and Fox Indian, Jim Thorpe was born Wa-tho-huck ("Bright Path") in Oklahoma in 1888. His childhood was a mix of hard work on his family's ranch, wild days hunting and living rough in the outdoors, and a succession of dreary, military-strict "Indian Schools" that sought to impose white culture on Indian children. Jim hated them and frequently ran away, but it was at one such school, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that his life would change. Watching some student athletes practicing the high jump, Jim asked if he might try. Wearing overalls and a work shirt, he effortlessly cleared the bar on his first attemptbreaking the school's high jump record. He was drafted onto the track and football teams by the school's coach, Pop Warner, and went on to lead Carlisle to victories over the best college teams of the time. At the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, Thorpe won the five-event Pentathlon with a score that would never be beaten, and the even more grueling Decathlon with a score that stood for 20 years.Brown, Don is the author of 'Bright Path' with ISBN 9780312377489 and ISBN 0312377487.