Richard Stride commentary: Considering Jim Thorpe — the original GOAT

Today, sports fans love to argue about who deserves the title GOAT, the Greatest of All Time. Some say Michael Jordan. Others insist it's Tom Brady, Muhammad Ali or perhaps Babe Ruth.

But long before any of those names became household words, there was a young Native American from Oklahoma named Jim Thorpe.

And if you ask me, he may have been the original GOAT.

My cousin Victor and I loved our football trading cards. We would often talk about Jim Thorpe. No trading cards were available during his time. But I did have a Red Grange card, and wish I still had that one.

Born in Indian Territory in 1887 or 1888, depending on historical records, Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation. His Native American name, Wa-Tho-Huk, is commonly translated as "Bright Path." It was a fitting name for a man who would eventually illuminate the world of sports.

His early life, however, was anything but easy. He lost his twin brother while still young and later endured the deaths of his parents. Like many Native American children of his generation, Thorpe attended boarding schools established during an era when Indigenous children were often separated from their families and pressured to abandon their languages and traditions.

One of those schools was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, an institution created to assimilate Native American children into white American society.

Ironically, it was there that one of America's greatest athletes would emerge.

Under legendary coach Glenn "Pop" Warner, Thorpe developed into one of the most remarkable football players the country had ever seen. He could run, tackle, kick, pass and seemingly do whatever the game required.

In 1911, Thorpe helped Carlisle defeat powerful Harvard, scoring all of his team's points in an 18-15 victory.

The following year, Carlisle faced the United States Military Academy at West Point. Among Army's players was a young cadet named Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would later command Allied forces in World War II and become the 34th president of the United States.

Eisenhower and his teammates knew Thorpe was the man to stop. According to accounts of the game, Eisenhower was among the Army players who attempted to tackle the powerful Carlisle star. Their efforts did little to slow him down.

Carlisle defeated Army 27-6.

Imagine that scene for a moment. On one side of the field stood a young Native American athlete who would become one of the greatest sports figures in American history. On the other stood a future American president and five-star general.

Neither could have known how history would remember them.

Thorpe wasn't simply a good football player. He was a sensation.

And football was only part of his story.

In 1912, Thorpe traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, to compete in the Olympic Games.

There he accomplished something almost unimaginable.

He won gold medals in both the pentathlon and the decathlon, competitions designed to measure an athlete's abilities across multiple events. Running, jumping, throwing, endurance, strength — Thorpe could do it all.

Consider that for a moment. Today's athletes often spend their entire careers perfecting one event. Thorpe mastered enough of them to win two of the most demanding competitions in the Olympics.

King Gustav V of Sweden reportedly told Thorpe that he was the greatest athlete in the world.

And who could argue?

Yet the story of Jim Thorpe is not simply about athletic greatness. It is also about injustice.

In 1913, officials discovered that Thorpe had previously received modest payments for playing minor league baseball. Under the strict amateur rules of the time, that made him ineligible for Olympic competition.

His gold medals were taken away.

The irony was difficult to ignore. Other college athletes had reportedly played baseball for money under assumed names. Thorpe had used his own.

A man who had represented his country with extraordinary distinction suddenly found himself disgraced by the very sporting establishment that had celebrated him.

But Thorpe did not stop competing.

He went on to play six seasons of Major League Baseball, primarily with the New York Giants, while also spending time with the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Braves. Baseball may not have been his greatest sport, but simply reaching the major leagues was an accomplishment most athletes could only dream about.

Then there was professional football.

Thorpe played for the Canton Bulldogs and helped establish the team as a powerhouse in the early years of professional football. He later played for other teams, including the Cleveland Indians and Oorang Indians.

In 1920, he became the first president of the American Professional Football Association, the organization that would be renamed the National Football League in 1922.

Think about that.

An Olympic champion in two demanding events, a college football legend, a Major League Baseball player, a professional football star, and the first president of the organization that became the NFL.

And there was still more. Thorpe also played professional basketball, adding yet another sport to his remarkable athletic résumé.

How many athletes in history could make such a claim?

Yet Thorpe accomplished all of this during an era when Native Americans faced enormous discrimination. Indeed, when he won his Olympic medals in 1912, many Native Americans were not yet recognized as United States citizens. Congress would not extend citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States until 1924.

Despite his fame, Thorpe's later years were marked by financial hardship and personal struggles. Like so many athletes before and after him, the cheers eventually faded, and the world moved on.

He died in 1953, long before the Olympic establishment fully corrected the injustice done to him.

In 1982, the International Olympic Committee approved the restoration of his Olympic status, and commemorative medals were presented to his family in 1983.

But the story wasn't finished.

It wasn't until 2022, an astonishing 110 years after his victories, that the International Olympic Committee finally recognized Jim Thorpe as the sole gold medalist in both the pentathlon and decathlon.

Think about that. More than a century passed before the record books fully reflected what had happened on that Olympic field in Stockholm.

We live in a time when athletes sign contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, when every touchdown becomes a highlight reel, and when debates about greatness fill television screens and social media.

There is nothing wrong with celebrating today's remarkable athletes.

But perhaps we should occasionally look backward.

Before the Super Bowl, before multimillion-dollar endorsements, before sports became the enormous business it is today, there was Jim Thorpe.

A Native American boy from Oklahoma who became a champion of the world, excelled in multiple professional sports, helped shape professional football, and demonstrated a versatility few athletes have ever matched.

His life reminds us that greatness is not always rewarded fairly, that recognition sometimes arrives far too late, and that a person's achievements cannot be erased simply because someone takes away a medal.

Jim Thorpe didn't need the world to call him the greatest.

His accomplishments had already made the argument.

And more than a century later, they still do.

Blessings!

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Dr. Richard J. Stride is a CEO of a local behavioral health agency. He can be reached at docrs53@gmail.com. Follow Dr. Stride on Facebook and Instagram.