Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

Warner asks Albert Exendine, a senior on the Carlisle team, to mentor Thorpe. Exendine enjoys teaching Thorpe, who learns easily and readily. This is the year the forward pass is instituted, and Exendine becomes its master with the ability to throw a spiral over 40 yards. Carlisle begins its season 6-0 when they beat the 7-0 Pennsylvania team by using the new spiral pass, amazing journalists and spectators alike with their mastery of the technique.

Carlisle’s 26-6 win over Penn shocks the media, which becomes fiercer in its racists writings against the team. The Philadelphia press, for instance, attributes their win to “racial savagery” (123). The Carlisle men continue to use such headlines as fuel for their wins despite headlines such as “PRINCETON […] SOLVED INDIAN PROBLEM” (124) after Princeton beat Carlisle 16-0. The news of the season, though, is Carlisle beating Harvard 23-15 for the first time ever.

Fans, coaches, and players love football under the new rules. Injury numbers are down, and the games are more focused on strategy, which makes the game more interesting for everyone involved. Thorpe loves being a Carlisle football player. He loves the camaraderie of the team, and he loves starting, which he does after many of the team members graduate in the spring of 1908.