Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team by Steve Sheinkin (review)

It takes an ambitious, sprawling biography to do justice to the multifaceted career of early twentieth-century sportsman Jim Thorpe, whose accomplishments cannot be fully appreciated without examining the educational system focused on forced assimilation of Native children, under which Thorpe came of age. Here Sheinkin concentrates on Thorpe’s years at the Carlisle Indian School, during which time both Thorpe and Carlisle became sports luminaries as football itself evolved rapidly into a semblance of the game we recognize today. Sheinkin attempts to converge several threads of the Thorpe/Carlisle story, switching between background on Carlisle’s developing football program, Glenn “Pop” Warner’s backstory and involvement in coaching and recruiting, and Thorpe’s tenure as restless, uncommitted student and football hero. Laying groundwork and inserting additional information ranging from Thorpe family history to the harsh philosophy behind Richard Henry Pratt’s approach to breaking his students’ cultural ties takes plenty of page space, and the full-blown football action doesn’t arrive until the book’s second half, where readers who prefer sports history to American history will enjoy the payoff. Photographs, notes, an extensive works cited list, and an index will support student research, but kids who skim the table of contents for game highlights will be equally pleased.