Original publish date: February 27, 2020
So, are you going through football withdrawals yet? It’s been three weeks since the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, the team’s first in half a century. Ironically, that victory came just over a century after the most famous Native American Indian athlete in our country’s history landed on a gridiron in the Hoosier state. Notre Dame? Nope. Purdue? Nope. Jim Thorpe, the world’s greatest athlete, was once an assistant coach for the Indiana University Hoosiers in Bloomington.
If you’ve never heard the story, then its worth a visit. If you already know it, then let us refresh. Thorpe began his athletic career at Pennsylvania’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1907 (a stone’s throw from the Gettysburg battlefield) where he played baseball, football, and was the star of the track team. He learned the game of football at the foot of a legend: Glen Scobey “Pop” Warner. Coach Warner was hesitant to allow Thorpe, his best track and field athlete, to compete in such a physical game as football. Thorpe, however, convinced Warner to let him try some rushing plays in practice against the school team’s defense. According to author Glen Jeansonne, Thorpe “ran around, past and through them not once, but twice” before walking over to Warner and saying “Nobody is going to tackle Jim”, while flipping him the ball.
In 1911 Thorpe made headlines when, while playing running back, defensive back, placekicker and punter, he scored all of his team’s points in an 18–15 upset of highly ranked Harvard. The game is considered one of the greatest upsets in early NCAA history. With Thorpe moving the ball, the tiny Carlisle team was winning against powerhouses like Harvard and Yale. Carlisle finished the season 11–1. In 1912 Carlisle won the national collegiate championship largely as a result of Thorpe’s efforts. That season, Thorpe ran for 27 touchdowns and accounted for 224 points. Recorded stats show that Thorpe rushed 191 times for 1,869 yards in 12 games but those figures do not include statistics from 2 of Carlisle’s 14 games in 1912 because full records were not kept.
That 1912 season included a 27–6 victory over Army. In that game, a 92-yard touchdown by Thorpe was called back by a teammate’s penalty. On the very next play, Thorpe rushed for a 97-yard touchdown. Future General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played against Thorpe that day, recalled Thorpe in a 1961 speech: “Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw.”
In the spring of 1912, Thorpe started training for the Olympics in Sweden. He had confined his efforts to jumps, hurdles and shot-puts, but soon added pole vaulting, javelin, discus, hammer and 56 lb weight throw. At Stockholm, Thorpe smashed many records and won gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon (the first time both events were held at any Olympics). In 1912, the medals were presented to the athletes at the closing ceremonies of the games. Along with his two gold medals, Thorpe also received two challenge prizes, which were donated by King Gustav V of Sweden for the decathlon and Czar Nicholas II of Russia for the pentathlon.
Legend states that, when awarding Thorpe his prize, King Gustav said, “You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world”, to which Thorpe replied, “Thanks, King”. On his return to the United States he was honored in New York City with a ticker-tape parade down Broadway. Thorpe recalled later, “I heard people yelling my name, and I couldn’t realize how one fellow could have so many friends.”
Along with his standout track and field appearances, Thorpe also played in one of two exhibition baseball games at the 1912 Olympics, a decision that would come back to haunt him. In late January 1913, the Worcester Telegram published a story revealing that Thorpe had played professional baseball, and soon, U.S. newspapers followed up on the story. In 1909 & 1910, Thorpe had played professional baseball in the Eastern Carolina League for the Rocky Mount Railroaders. For his efforts, Thorpe was reportedly paid $2 ($55 today) per game and as much as $35 ($960 today) per week. College players, in fact, regularly spent summers playing professionally but most used aliases, unlike Thorpe.
In a letter to the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) secretary Edward Sullivan, Thorpe explained, “I hope I will be partly excused by the fact that I was simply an Indian schoolboy and did not know all about such things. In fact, I did not know that I was doing wrong, because I was doing what I knew several other college men had done, except that they did not use their own names.” The letter did not help. The AAU withdrew Thorpe’s amateur status retroactively. Later that year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) unanimously decided to strip Thorpe of his Olympic titles, medals and awards and declare him a professional.
Thorpe played professional football in 1913 as a member of the Indiana-based Pine Village Pros, a team that had a several-season winning streak against local teams during the 1910s. Also that year, Thorpe signed pro contracts to play baseball with the New York Giants and football for the Chicago Cardinals and Canton (Ohio) Bulldogs. The Bulldogs paid Thorpe $ 250 per game ($5,919 today) a huge sum for the time. Overnight, the Bulldogs went from drawing 1,200 fans per game to 8,000. Thorpe was front page news, leading the Bulldogs to league championships in 1916, 1917 and 1919. In 1920, the Bulldogs and 13 other teams formed the APFA (American Professional Football Association) the forerunner of today’s NFL and Thorpe was elected the league’s first president. You might say that Jim Thorpe was a big deal.
What is perhaps the least known era of Thorpe’s career was the season he spent at Indiana. In 1914 IU hired Clarence Chester Childs as its head football coach. C.C. Childs, captain of the Yale track team, competed for the United States in the 1912 Summer Olympics alongside Jim Thorpe. Childs won a bronze medal in the hammer throw. Childs was an interesting man in his own right. He served in France during World War I and afterwards was appointed by President Warren Harding to a position within the U.S. Treasury Department. However, he was fired after he attacked a US Secret Service agent, who was following him on suspicion that Childs had illegally removed sensitive documents.
After being hired at I.U., Childs contacted his fellow Olympic teammate Thorpe, who was wrapping up a season with the Giants. Thorpe was asked to assist with IU’s 1915 football season. He was paid a salary of $1000 plus a room for his family at a Bloomington hotel and ftoke his meals on campus. The students were thrilled to learn that the World’s Greatest Athlete would be joining their team on notoriously soggy Jordan Field, a gridiron famous for its inability to shed water. Often, Coach Childs had to move practice to the school’s track oval, which recently had been fitted with temporary high-power electric lights. Now, with the hiring of Jim Thorpe, the Hoosiers were moving up a notch. Not only is C.C. Childs best remembered for the man he hired as an assistant coach, but also for the man he passed over to do it.
Next Week: Park II of Jim Thorpe-Indiana Hoosier.
A total of 17 people died immediately, including 13 players, a coach, a trainer, a student manager and a booster. One member of the team miraculously landed on his feet and was unharmed after being thrown out a window. All the casualties were limited to the team’s railcar. Twenty-nine more players were hospitalized, several of whom suffered crippling injuries that would last the rest of their lives. Further tragedy was averted when several people, led by the “John Purdue Special” brakeman, ran up the track to slow down the second special train that was following 10 minutes behind the first. This heroic action undoubtedly saved many lives by preventing another train wreck. One of the survivors of the wreck was Purdue University President Winthrop E. Stone who remained on the scene to comfort the injured and dying.
Walter Bailey, a reserve player from New Richmond, was grievously injured but refused aid so that others could be helped before him. Bailey would die a month later at the hospital from complications from his injuries and massive blood loss. Purdue team Captain Harry “Skeets” Leslie was found with ghastly wounds and covered up for dead. His body was transported to the morgue with the others. Leslie would later be upgraded to “alive” when, while his body lay on a cold slab at the morgue, someone noticed his right arm move slightly and he was found to have a faint pulse. Skeets was clinging to life for several weeks and needed several operations before he was out of the woods. Leslie would later go on to become the state of Indiana’s 33rd governor, the only Purdue graduate to ever hold that office. As a reminder of that Halloween train disaster, Skeets would walk with a limp for the rest of his life.
The train was traveling on what would have been the 101st birthday of school founder and namesake John Purdue (born October 31, 1802). Purdue, a wealthy landowner, politician, educator and merchant, was the primary benefactor of the University. In 1903, if you wanted to get to Indianapolis from either school, you had three choices: ride a horse and buggy, walk or take the train. Since these were the days before automobile travel was popular, train travel was the most widely accepted form of transportation.
Unlike the raucous fans traveling in the 13 plush, modern streamliner train coaches behind them, the Boilermakers team traveled in relative silence, focusing on the task at hand, mentally preparing for their upcoming rivalry game in the cozy confines of an older wooden train car. Unfortunately, the athletes had no idea that a minor mistake would lead to a major disaster. Railroad protocol specified that “Special” trains operate independent of the regular schedule. Timing was everything in the railroad game.
The Indianapolis star reported, “The trains came together with a great crash, which wrecked three of the passenger coaches, in addition to the engine and tender of the special train and two or three of the coal cars. The first coach on the special train was reduced to splinters. The second coach was thrown down a fifteen-foot embankment into the gravel pit and the third coach was thrown from the track to the west-side and badly wrecked. The coal cars plowed their way into the engine and demolished it completely. The coal tender was tossed to the side and turned over. A wild effort on the part of the imprisoned passengers to escape from the wrecked car followed the crash. Immediately following the wreck the students and the others turned their attention to the work of rescuing the injured, and by the time the first ambulances arrived many of the dead and suffering young men had been carried out and placed on the grass on both sides of the track.”
The fans at the rear of the train were unaware of what happened and only felt a slight jolt as the train came to a sudden stop. These rearmost passengers wasted no time in coming to the assistance of the victims up ahead. The erstwhile revelers skidded to a stop at the scene of carnage and were horrified at the devastation before them. Acts of unselfish action made heroes out of athletes and ordinary people alike.
Seventeen passengers in the first coach were killed. Thirteen of the dead were members of the Purdue football team. Walter Bailey, a reserve player from New Richmond, although grievously injured, refused aid so that others could be helped. Team Captain Skeets Leslie was covered up for dead, his body transported to the morgue with the others. It was the first catastrophe to hit a major college sports team in the history of this country. The affects would be felt for decades to come and one of those players would rise from the dead, shake off accusations of association with Irvington KKK leader D.C. Stephenson, and lead his state and country through the Great Depression.
Original publish date: July 20, 2017
Another of the letters, dated Dec. 10, 1902, touched me personally because it was written by the sister of Louis Weichmann, the main government witness at the trial of the conspirators. Weichmann lived in Mrs. Surratt’s boarding house and many believe it was Weichmann’s testimony that got Mary Surratt hung. Weichmann moved to Anderson Indiana after the trial and founded Anderson business college. He is buried in Anderson’s St. Francis cemetery in an unmarked grave. “Dear Sir-I am sending you a copy of Sundays Indianapolis Journal containing a confession of one of the conspirators of President Lincoln….With best regards from our family, I remain Sincerely yours, Mrs. C.O. Crowley Sister of the late L.J. Wiechmann.” Curiously, Mrs. Crowley misspelled her own maiden name in her letter.
Included within that collection was a group of several dozen items that once belonged to Osborn Oldroyd himself. This included correspondence from Anderson’s Louis Weichmann to Oldroyd about shared information for books about Abraham Lincoln both men were simultaneously working on as well as photos and several handwritten eyewitness accounts of the assassination of President Lincoln. My personal favorite was a pencil drawing of Lincoln Conspirator Lewis Thornton Powell drawn by Crawfordsville, Indiana’s General Lew Wallace.
Alan E. Hunter 