Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

Aboard the Finland, Jim practices visualization, a technique of mentally rehearsing an athletic move or competition, though the technique was rare in 1912. Reporters don’t see Jim’s practice as actual practice, and write racist articles about him being a “lazy Indian” while other athletes are practicing.

During the Olympics, Thorpe wins two gold medals while Louis Tewanima (a Carlisle classmate of Thorpe’s) wins silver in the 10,000-meter race. Thorpe enjoys being in Stockholm and “strolling the cobblestone streets” (175) but soon realizes that people from other countries are gawking at him because he does not fit their expectations and stereotypes about Indigenous people.

After their wins, Thorpe and Tewanima sit on stage and endure long congratulatory speeches “in the blazing sun” (179). Thorpe needs to make a decision about what he should do next, and many promoters try to convince him to play professional baseball, box, and wrestle. Warner wants Thorpe to return to Carlisle for another football season and believes the promoters are only trying to use Thorpe’s celebrity to increase ticket sales. The narrator implies that Warner may be exploiting Thorpe in his own way to maintain his position at Carlisle and the team’s success.

Future president Dwight Eisenhower enters the story and works his way onto the Army football team.