Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe 
- ISBN13: 9780375413247
- Condition: New
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With clarity and a fine eye for detail, Kate Buford traces the pivotal moments of Thorpe’s incomparable career: growing up in the tumultuous Indian Territory of Oklahoma; leading the Carlisle Indian Industrial School football team, coached by the renowned “Pop” Warner, to victories against the coun
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Don’t Miss This,
This is a must-read book for anyone who cares about biography, history, sports, native Americans, Hollywood, or the human condition. It has it all in the form of the charismatic Jim Thorpe, a spectacular talent whose exploits would be hard to believe if such a trustworthy and gifted writer as Kate Buford weren’t describing him. How could a football player catch his own punts?… have reactions “so fast that sometimes you couldn’t follow them with the eye”?…. leave his nearest rivals so far in the dust one is tempted to think of Secretariat?… And how could someone as beloved as Thorpe been so unfairly stripped of his Olympic medals? In Buford’s hands, the man’s larger-than-life accomplishments and all-too-human failures and contradictions are balanced and given historical context– and the reader can’t help but mourn his passing.
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Jim Thorpe- an outstanding bio of a 20th century superstar,
For anyone interested in the famous Olympic decathalon champion and for some, the greatest football player ever, who happened to be a native american , read this book! And for anyone interested in the early history of track & field, football, the “real” Pop Warner, baseball, the AAU/Avery Brundage/amateurism, the birth of professionalism, native american politics, racism and Hollywood- this book has it all. Kate Buford has done a superior job of definitive research supporting her bittersweet portrait of a national legend.
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Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe”,
Kate Buford’s “Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe” is an informative and entertaining read. Her years of exhaustive and intensive research show–virtually every page is a “learning experience.” Of course, all the legendary aspects of Thorpe’s remarkable life are explained in nuanced detail (football All-America, Olympic glory and disgrace, major league baseball player, and pro football pioneer,) but what separates this Jim Thorpe book from the others is her unique treatment of Thorpe’s post-playing career–a subject woefully glossed over in previous biographies. I’ve never seen such a meticulous accounting (detailed, but far from dull) of his Native American activism and his Hollywood days, as well as his everyday life. Especially interesting was how East Mauch Chunk and Mauch Chunk merged to become the town of Jim Thorpe (Pennsylvania) without Thorpe ever having been there. Anyone the least bit interested in Thorpe, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, or Native American life would do well to purchase and read this all-encompassing work.
Jim Campbell – football historian
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