Jim Thorpe awarded posthumous Medal of Freedom

The man whom many call the greatest athlete who ever lived has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.

Jim Thorpe, a Native American, was born in the Sac and Fox Nation in Oklahoma Territory in the late 1880s — the exact year is unknown. President Biden, in presenting the Medal of Freedom to Thorpe’s granddaughter May 3, called Thorpe a “one-of-a-kind champion.”

After losing both parents and his twin brother as a child, Thorpe spent much of his youth hunting in Oklahoma Territory (which became part of the state of Oklahoma in 1907) and developed exceptional athleticism. He grew up to excel in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, lacrosse … even ballroom dancing. But it was his success in track and field events for which he is most remembered.

He was the first Native American to win a gold medal at the Olympics (1912). In fact, he won two — in both the pentathlon and the decathlon — by wide margins. The Olympic record that he set in the 100-meter race was not bettered until 1948. (His Olympic medals were stripped less than a year after he won them because he had played professionally for a minor league baseball team in 1909–10, which violated the Olympic rules of the time. The medals were restored after his death.)

As a college student playing football for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would become the 34th U.S. president, played against Thorpe.

Thorpe scored a 92-yard touchdown, but it wasn’t counted because of a teammate’s penalty. Undeterred, Thorpe on the next play rushed for a 97-yard touchdown. West Point lost, and Eisenhower remembered Thorpe for the rest of his life.

Biden told Thorpe’s granddaughter that he himself grew up hearing about Thorpe from his own grandfather, who Biden said, talked about Thorpe “all the time.”

In addition to Thorpe’s athletic achievements, he also was the first president of the NFL and acted in scores of Hollywood movies, though did not achieve great success in Hollywood. He was proud to have served in the Merchant Marines during World War II. Thorpe died in 1953.