Naturally, Thorpe was also already well-known as possibly the best college football player in the entire nation by the start of the 1912 college football season. The many cadets and Army fans could only applaud him when the Carlisle team under the captainship of Jim Thorpe defeated their West Point team 26 to 7 that October date.
Although the emotional Oklahoman, Jim Thorpe fell far too often into the stereotype of a drunken Indian at times during his various sports careers, in that autumn of 1912, Pop Warner was often able to get Thorpe back on track that fall. He reminded Jim constantly, “You’ve got to behave yourself. You owe it to the public as well as your school. The Olympic Games have made you into a public figure and you’ve got to shoulder the responsibility.” [p. 265]
Jim, as did all of his Carlisle Indian teammates, recognized that very many Native Americans looked up to him. He regularly demonstrated an ability to reflect on his own mistakes and renewed his pride throughout that final season as the Indians finished 12 and 1 (falling only to Penn State).
However, there was a tendency for young confused Indians caught between (1) modern society and (2) historically important facets of Native American culture to wander off away from the particular disciplines required by the modern world. Many young natives ran away from Carlisle over the 3 decades of the school’s existence. Others, like Thorp, ran from all the attention of the media and the control of Pop Warner in Pennsylvania.
For nearly 2 years, Thorpe actually had gone missing or AWOL from Carlisle--in both 1909 and 1910 —turning up in Oklahoma at his sister’s home every autumn after spending time barnstorming with minor league baseball teams in the Carolinas. Eventually, a fellow Indian from his days at Carlisle—who Thorpe looked up to as a big brother--finally successfully persuaded the ever stronger young athlete to return to the discipline of the football gridiron and college life in both 1911 and 1912.
That wasn’t the case for his fellow Olympic medalist, Lewis Tewanima, though. Even as Tewanima successfully medaled in the Olympics in Sweden, he determine simply to return home to herd sheep on the Hopi lands of his ancestors in Arizona once the Autumn 1912 school year was under way.
KANSAS’ EISENHOWER
Although as a whole, Anderson,tells a fairly sanitized version of the lives of Thorpe, Warner and Eisenhower, he is less romantic or sympathetic to the boy from Abilene, Kansas who fought on the gridiron for Army in the greatest match-up of its day. Unlike Thorpe, who lost both his twin brother and mother at an early age, Dwight Eisenhower grows up in a very full house with other Eisenhowers in the working class section of Abilene. Both his parents see him off to the day he leaves the home for the train east to join other new cadets at West Point.
Like his Oklahoman football nemesis Thorpe, “Ike”, as he is called by all, was a sometimes moody fellow who could show great determination when he so desired—and he often was very determined. Even though, Ike was not very fast or as huge as Thorpe, Eisenhower could carry quite a few tacklers or barrel them over as he charged down field.
Anderson notes that Ike grew up in a town where his neighbors would tell stories of the wild days of Abilene, Kansas—two decades earlier--when gunslingers, cattle, brothel’s and saloons ran the streets of the city. The young Eisenhowers were mesmerized with first hand accounts of what the prairie boomtown was like when Wild Bill Hickock was the sheriff of the town (when Abilene was the original end of the line or railway head for the Chisholm trail coming out of Texas).
Eisenhower was obviously more gifted academically than was the Oklahoman, Jim Thorpe, however, he had several character flaws just as Thorpe did, and these were flaws which often got him into grave trouble or fights.
Abilene legends include the hour-long fist-fight he had with a bigger and older boy when he was just 13-years old. In short, as his mother warned him often, Ike needed to learn to not let anger control his actions or thoughts. After the Army loss to Carlisle, in which Cadet Eisenhower severely injured his knee for the first time, Ike would become very depressed and do several things that almost ended his military career before it got started. For example, despite being told by doctors that he should not ride a horse, Ike not only rode a dangerous horse but jumped off the horse. This jump-off a horse on an already-bad knee effectively ended his football career in late 1912.
Thorpe had only done such a dangerous jump after being basically called slacker by the officer in charge of the horses. The pride and anger in Eisenhower was such that he felt that he had to stand up to the challenge. However, in his rage that day, Ike had ignored all the retreats of fellow cadets to back off.
The depression that followed this loss of his sporting ability almost led the young Eisenhower to leave West Point later the following spring. Later, near the end of his time at West Point the future commander of U.S. Armed Forces in Europe and later the two-term President of the USA needed to receive fudged results of his physical to be allowed to continue in the military. (The West Point doctor knew Eisenhower, his health, and character well enough. The doctor, however, ignored the army regulations and despite the weak knee allowed Ike to continue his military career in 1915.)
The fact is that Ike’s injury in the Carlisle and Army Game of the Century occurred because young Ike was out of control and trying to undertake too much. That is, he was seeking to take on the Greatest Athlete in the World in the second half of that game. On that game day, Ike was so angry and desiring so badly to win the game at all cost that he and his peers tried to hit, knock, or tackle Jim Thorpe so hard that Thorpe would have to leave the game. However, eventually it was Ike who ended up having a severe injury on the gridiron.
This is how it happened.
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