New Jim Thorpe documentary gives insight into his rising athletic stardom, which began at Franklin Field

At the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Jim Thorpe made his mark on the biggest sporting stage in the world. Thorpe, who was born into the Sac and Fox Nation, became the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States.

He won two Olympic golds, in the pentathlon and decathlon, that were stripped a year later because of amateurism rules, then finally restored three years ago. But in Jim Thorpe: Lit by Lightning, the new documentary on the History Channel that details his life, his Native American heritage, and athletic feats in multiple sports, his first breakthrough as an athlete actually came in Philadelphia.

The two-hour documentary, directed by Chris Eyre, a Native American filmmaker of the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, sets the scene in the early life of Thorpe, who was born in Oklahoma. At 16, as the documentary details, Thorpe was sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pa. At his previous school, Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kan., Thorpe was introduced to football, and that love only grew at the Carlisle Indian School.

Thorpe’s athleticism was first discovered in the high jump pit: The documentary describes him watching other boys attempting to clear the bar and him doing so on his first attempt in overalls. Word reached Carlisle’s track and field and football coach Pop Warner, who later coached at Temple in the 1930s and for whom youth football leagues are named.

Warner wanted Thorpe to stick with track and field, but Thorpe was adamant about playing football. “I kept after him until he finally threw a suit to me, hoping to get rid of me, I guess,” Thorpe wrote in an excerpt from his unreleased autobiography that was shown in the documentary.

Thorpe joined the Carlisle Indian School football team in 1907, and was a backup until a game against the University of Pennsylvania in October of that year.

“Pop Warner put him in to replace an injured player, but it didn’t go exactly according to plan,” Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an American historian, says in the documentary.

He got off to a slow start, but that game, Eyre says, “really put Jim Thorpe on the map.”

“In 1907, Carlisle beat the University of Pennsylvania, 26-6, and Jim scored one touchdown, but it was really his coming out in football, at the behest of the great University of Pennsylvania,” Eyre said in a telephone interview. “And then he goes on by 1911 to have a championship season with the Carlisle Indian [School]. [Penn and Carlisle] play again, and they beat [the Quakers], 16-0. And I’m told that there were 25,000 fans, and they were actually cheering in support for Thorpe in this little Indian school because the press has built up this rivalry over the years.”

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Added Thorpe in an excerpt from his unpublished autobiography on the 1907 game: “The next time the ball was passed to me, I got away around the end and tore 75 yards to a touchdown, and Pop Warner soon decided I was there to stay.”

Several professors, authors of Thorpe biographies, and sports journalists recounted stories of Thorpe’s football days in the documentary, including his games played at Franklin Field. Thorpe competed at the Penn Relays there as well.

In 1908, Thorpe’s Carlisle Indian School faced Penn again. And this time, since he had “created an identity of toughness,” the ascending player ”came into that game with a target on his back," sports journalist Kirsten Watson says in the documentary.

In the final minutes of the game, with his team trailing 6-0, Thorpe, who was mainly a tailback but played both offense and defense — and served as the team’s kicker — documents in his autobiography that he “got the ball on a fast pass, and was on my way skirting the end … 65 yards to a touchdown, tying the score.” The game ended in a tie.

But his most impressive football feat, the documentary shows, is Carlisle Indian School’s matchup with Harvard, a football powerhouse at the time, in 1911.

Thorpe had an injury to his kicking leg entering the game, but that didn’t slow him down, as he kicked two field goals in the first half.

“If we look at the NFL today, there’s nobody who does what Jim Thorpe did back in the day,” says ESPN’s Adam Schefter in the documentary.

» READ MORE: From 2022: Jim Thorpe reinstated as sole winner for 1912 Olympic golds

Carlisle Indian School ended up upsetting Harvard that day, 18-15, led by Thorpe’s four field goals, in a performance former ESPN broadcaster Jemele Hill likened to “Kobe Bryant dropping 81 [points], Tiger [Woods] winning Masters by 12 strokes, Wayne Gretzky’s Game 7 magic over Toronto.”

“All those ridiculous athletic accomplishments that became the defining games for the defining athlete,” Hill adds in the documentary, “that’s what that game was for him.”

Added Kate Buford, author of Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe: “Years later, Sports Illustrated would point to this game and Jim’s performance in it that would have earned Jim the Heisman Trophy, had the Heisman Trophy existed.”

Although Thorpe went on to win two medals in the 1912 Olympics and acclaimed professional careers in major league baseball (1913-19), the Ohio (football) League (1915-19) and American Professional Football Association (1920-28), which later became the NFL in 1922, Eyre points to his rise to stardom stemming from the Carlisle Indian School-Penn rivalry in the early 1900s.

“His coming out [as an athlete], I think, was much to do about the University of Pennsylvania and that rivalry that really made him into the star that he was nationally, and then he went on to become a star of athletics in the world with the [1912] Olympics,” Eyre said. “I just think that Jim Thorpe is a name that everyone should know, especially in sports cultures, but certainly Native American youth. And then his story is so universal, because it’s a story of tenacity and perseverance, and to put one foot in front of the other all the time, and no matter where you come from, that he’s a champion, and he’s a great role model for all Americans.”

Added David Maraniss, author of Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe: “Jim Thorpe was made for football because he was great at everything, and he loved to hit people, which was what football was all about.”

The documentary, with LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s Uninterrupted as executive producers, will debut on the History Channel on Monday at 8 p.m.