Think you know all there is to know about Jim Thorpe? Well, did you know that:* His Sauk and Fox name was Wa-Tho-Huk, which means Bright Path?* He broke his high school’s high jump record on his very first jump?* On the football field, he could run fast enough to catch his own punt? Jim Thorpe has been called the greatest athlete of the twentieth century. He excelled in football, baseball, and track and field. He won two Olympic gold medals in 1912. But his career was marred by controversy. And as a Native American, he faced much prejudice. Read all about his struggles and his triumphs.
Think you know all there is to know about Jim Thorpe? Well, did you know that: ? His Sauk and Fox name was Wa-Tho-Huk, which means Bright Path? ? He broke his high schools high jump record on his very first jump? ? On the football field, he could run fast enough to catch his own punt? Jim Thorpe has been called the greatest athlete of the twentieth century. He excelled in football, baseball, and track and field. He won two Olympic gold medals in 1912. But his career was marred by controversy. And as a Native American, he faced much prejudice. Read all about his struggles and his triumphs.
A stunning work of narrative nonfiction, Carlisle vs. Army recounts the fateful 1912 gridiron clash that pitted one of America’s finest athletes, Jim Thorpe, against the man who would become one of the nation’s greatest heroes, Dwight D. Eisenhower. But beyond telling the tale of this momentous event, Lars Anderson also reveals the broader social and historical context of the match, lending it his unique perspectives on sports and culture at the dawn of the twentieth century. This story begins with the infamous massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee, in 1890, then moves to rural Pennsylvania and the Carlisle Indian School, an institution designed to “elevate” Indians by uprooting their youths and immersing them in the white man’s ways. Foremost among those ways was the burgeoning sport of football. In 1903 came the man who would mold the Carlisle Indians into a juggernaut: Glenn “Pop” Warner, the son of a former Union Army captain. Guided by Warner, a tireless innovator and skilled manager, the Carlisle eleven barnstormed the country, using superior team speed, disciplined play, and tactical mastery to humiliate such traditional powerhouses as Harvard, Yale, Michigan, and Wisconsin–and to, along the way, lay waste American prejudices against Indians. When a troubled young Sac and Fox Indian from Oklahoma named Jim Thorpe arrived at Carlisle, Warner sensed that he was in the presence of greatness. While still in his teens, Thorpe dazzled his opponents and gained fans across the nation. In 1912 the coach and the Carlisle team could feel the national championship within their grasp. Among the obstacles in Carlisle’s path to dominance were the Cadets of Army, led by a hardnosed Kansan back named Dwight Eisenhower. In Thorpe, Eisenhower saw a legitimate target; knocking the Carlisle great out of the game would bring glory both to the Cadets and to Eisenhower. The symbolism of this matchup was lost on neither Carlisle’s footballers nor on Indians across the country who followed their exploits. Less than a quarter century after Wounded Knee, the Indians would confront, on the playing field, an emblem of the very institution that had slaughtered their ancestors on the field of battle and, in defeating them, possibly regain a measure of lost honor. Filled with colorful period detail and fascinating insights into American history and popular culture, Carlisle vs. Army gives a thrilling, authoritative account of the events of an epic afternoon whose reverberations would be felt for generations. "Carlisle vs. Army is about football the way that The Natural is about baseball.” –Jeremy Schaap, author of I
America's favorite sport and Native American history collide in this thrilling true story of the legendary Carlisle Indians football team and their rise from underdogs to champions.
A biography of Native American athlete Jim Thorpe, focusing on how his boyhood education set the stage for his athletic achievements which gained him international fame and Olympic gold medals. Author's note details Thorpe's life after college.
Sally Jenkins, bestselling co-author of It's Not About the Bike, revives a forgotten piece of history in The Real All Americans. In doing so, she has crafted a truly inspirational story about a Native American football team that is as much about football as Lance Armstrong's book was about a bike. If you’d guess that Yale or Harvard ruled the college gridiron in 1911 and 1912, you’d be wrong. The most popular team belonged to an institution called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Its story begins with Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt, a fierce abolitionist who believed that Native Americans deserved a place in American society. In 1879, Pratt made a treacherous journey to the Dakota Territory to recruit Carlisle’s first students. Years later, three students approached Pratt with the notion of forming a football team. Pratt liked the idea, and in less than twenty years the Carlisle football team was defeating their Ivy League opponents and in the process changing the way the game was played. Sally Jenkins gives this story of unlikely champions a breathtaking immediacy. We see the legendary Jim Thorpe kicking a winning field goal, watch an injured Dwight D. Eisenhower limping off the field, and follow the glorious rise of Coach Glenn “Pop” Warner as well as his unexpected fall from grace. The Real All Americans is about the end of a culture and the birth of a game that has thrilled Americans for generations. It is an inspiring reminder of the extraordinary things that can be achieved when we set aside our differences and embrace a common purpose.
This second edition of Philosophy of Sport: Core Readings provides an overview of core topics in the field, ranging from fundamental questions about the nature of sport to ethical issues at the forefront of discussions of what sport should be. On the nature of sport, readers will gain a solid understanding of fundamental theories of games, play, and sports, as well as sport epistemology, the esports controversy, and sport aesthetics. Topics in the ethics of sport include performance-enhancing drugs, cheating, gamesmanship, and sportsmanship. This edition has been updated and expanded to include sections on gender and race and to provide broader and deeper coverage of this rapidly evolving area.
The widow of a major player in the world of San Francisco nonprofits believes that his alleged mistress killed him-and she's putting up fifty grand to whoever helps prove it. Wyatt Hunt and his investigation firm want in on that action-no matter where it takes them...
A Turing Award-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence "Correlation is not causation." This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality -- the study of cause and effect -- on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.
