Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe, full name James Francis Thorpe (1888-1953). US athlete and American football player. Of Native American descent, Thorpe attended the Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where lie made his reputation as an outstanding halfback and all-round athlete. At the Stockholm Olympics (1912) he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon. However, a year later he was deprived of his medals when it was revealed that he had played semi-professional baseball in 1909-10, thereby forfeiting his amateur status. Subsequently, Thorpe played baseball for various National League teams (1913-19) and became a professional football star (1919-26). In 1950 a panel of sportswriters voted him the greatest US athlete of the half-century. Despite this, his last years were spent in alcoholism and poverty. In 1982-83, some 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee restored his amateur status and returned his medals to his family.
