Tweet This episode we fire up the DeLorean and head back to explore part 1 of a 2-part series of Jim Thorpe, "The World's Greatest Athlete".  The timeline covered in this episode is Jim's birth through his time in college and the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.  So strap on your seat belt, and let’s get ready to take this baby up to 88mph.
 
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Read Full Transcript Today we celebrate the 4th of July in the United States of America. This is the day back in 1776 where our forefathers finalized a Declaration for Independence. We all must not take lightly the sacrifices made by the men and women back in 1776, nor any time in history. So first, I want to thank all the men and women for protecting this great nation of ours and in this upcoming episode, I’m going to cover part 1 of a 2 part series of the World’s Greatest Athlete, Jim Thorpe.
Childhood
This time as we step off our DeLorean, the date is June 25th, 1876. Which is basically a 100 years after the Declaration of Independence. And we are in Little Big Horn valley. You see, this was the scene of the most decisive victory for the Native Americans in the Plains Indian War, which was a very long war. And most of you know it as the Battle of Little Big Horn, or you might also know it as the famous Custer’s Last Stand. And why am I talking about wars that happened all these years ago? What’s the reason for it? Well, like I said, today is the day of our independence. And part of that was the independence for all peoples, and the guy we’re going to talk about in this episode, Mr. Jim Thorpe. He was born 12 years after this battle. So you gotta say, there was not that many years between when America was still fighting with Native people of this land. Jim Thorpe was born on a reservation, which we’re going to go ahead and take that DeLorean back to May 28th, 1888. We are in Prague, which is present day Oklahoma, and it was Indian Territory at the time. Jim Thorpe was born with the name James Francis Thorpe. But that wasn’t really the name that he recognized as a young boy. He was predominately American Indian, and this came from his mother’s side. Who was a descendant of Sauk and Fox Chief, Black Hawk. According to the ESPN Classic video that I saw, and I’m going to provide links to you. When a Native American mother had a baby, she would name the baby after the first thing she saw, and they mentioned how she saw the sun rising and there was a path. Kind of like through the trees or something. She named him Wah-Tho-Huk, which translated into Bright Path. And the name Bright Path for Jim Thorpe was an understatement. He would go on to have one of those once in a millennium type of careers, and no one else could rival him. And he was Native American. Like I said, there was that war that was going on, and there wasn’t a whole lot of getting along back in 1888. He was born on a reservation. This is where we start the journey of Jim Thorpe, and what turned him from an Indian on a reservation into what would become the World’s Greatest Athlete. The first major adversity Jim had to deal with was he had a twin brother that passed away at the age of 8. He was one of Jim’s best friends. Then 6 years later his mother passed away. So Jim was kind of this kid that was losing his way, didn’t quite understand in the world, and they spoke in the video how he still had that running with the feet and his heart to the ground. His beat and path and the warrior self inside of him. They were trying to put him in these schools that would have him lose sight of his Native American heritage. And when he went to these schools he would run away