1912 Carlisle vs. Army (Jim Thorpe-Ike)

[BB73]

Here's a link to an interesting article, based on a book about the 1912 game between Pop Warner coached Carlisle (Indian School) and an Army team with some famous future generals.

si.com/carllisle

By Lars Anderson
Excerpted from CARLISLE VS. ARMY by Lars Anderson. Copyright ?2007 by Lars Anderson. Reprinted by arrangement with The Random House Publishing Group.

Courtesy of Random House




The two teams stood on opposite sidelines of Cullum Field at West Point, studying each other closely as whites and Indians once did from opposite sides of frontier battlefields. Kickoff between the Carlisle Indian School and Army was minutes away. The cold November air at West Point was thick with tension. This was it, the game James Francis Thorpe, Dwight David Eisenhower, and Glenn Scobey Warner had been waiting to play all their lives.
For Thorpe and the other Indian players, this was their chance to prove once and for all that they could play the game of football better than the white man -- and better than the sons of the military men who shared the same blood as the soldiers who pulled the triggers at Wounded Knee. This was the Indian's chance to avenge, in some small way, that massacre of twenty-two years ago.

A victory would also amount to further justification of the Carlisle Indian School: a good showing could prove that Indians were every bit as competent and powerful as their white contemporaries.

Cont'd ...

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

Here's a link to an interesting article, based on a book about the 1912 game between Pop Warner coached Carlisle (Indian School) and an Army team with some famous future generals.

si.com/carllisle

Didn't you cover this game for the Carlisle Sentinel?


You were looking for this joke about this game almost two years ago. As I'm sure you recall, it was played on your birthday.

 

[bkochmc]

GREATEST U.S SUMMER OLYMPIANS - SI Vault

 

[Bucklion]

Easily one of the best books ever in terms of entertainment value and historical "Holy Crap" facts...for example to see how close Ike and Omar Bradley were to not getting into the service (not to mention that Ike almost lost his leg as a child), and to think about how different the world would be, is mind-boggling. Add in the football, the fact that a future American president was the savior of the sport (literally, it was almost shut down), Pop Warner and his early visions of the modern game, and the buildup to the amazing climax of Thorpe versus Ike, and I couldn't put this book down until I finished it. Way, way, way awesome.