Jim Thorpe: The World’s Greatest Athlete February 20, 2010

The film chronicles the story of the Indian from Oklahoma who was acclaimed as the greatest athlete of the 20th century. As the American hero of the 1912 Olympics and an early pro-football star, Jim Thorpe defied race prejudice in the sports establishment.

Jim Thorpe was the Native American athlete who became a sports icon in the first half of the 20th century. Beginning with Thorpe's boyhood in Indian Territory it chronicles his rise to athletic stardom at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, winning two gold medals at the 1912 Summer Olympics, his fall from grace in the eyes of the amateur athletic establishment, and his rebound in professional baseball and football. This is a film about a man who used his amazing physical prowess as a way to affirm his American Indian identity in the face of unrelenting efforts to eradicate Native American culture. It is the first documentary film to tell the story of Thorpe's life outside his well-known athletic victories. The film uses in-depth interviews with Thorpe's surviving children, some simple recreations and images culled from over seventy-five archive sources, both stills and motion picture.