He had no shoes!

There's been a story going around social media about the famous Native American athlete and 1912 Olympic Gold Medalist (rightfully restored just in 1983, nearly 30 years after his death) Jim Thorpe.  Thorpe's story is perhaps less well known today, but I remember reading stories about him and watching the 1951 movie Jim Thorpe All-American starring Burt Lancaster (playing Jim Thorpe) when I was young (please note that I watched the movie on television more than two decades after it was first released). 

Basically, Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes in history.  He was a two-time All American college football player at Carlisle College, coached by the legendary Glenn "Pop" Warner.  He led Carlisle to the national football championship in 1912.  In one notable game against Army, Thorpe ran 92 yards for a touchdown, only to have the play nullified by an offensive penalty.  He ran 97 yards for a touchdown on the very next play.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower played against Thorpe that day on the Army team and said this in a 1961 speech:

Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw.

Thorpe also starred in Track and Field at Carlisle College, eventually leading him to try out for the 1912 U.S. Track and Field Olympic Team.  He made the team (easily), and he would go on to win the Gold Medal in both the pentathlon (5 events in a single day) and decathlon (10 events over two days) at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden.  King Gustav V of Sweden gave him an additional award at the Olympics, saying "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world."  Unfortunately, the two Gold Medals (and the award from King Gustav V) were later nullified and taken away because Thorpe had played semi-professional baseball for two seasons in 1909 and 1910.  It seems silly now, but back then there were very strict rules about amateurism in Olympic sports (upon reflection today, the whole controversy appears racially motivated, as Thorpe was a Native American).  Thorpe would go on to play professional baseball (sporadically, for the New York Giants, the Cincinnati Reds, and the Boston Braves), basketball (for a traveling pro team, but never for the NBA), and football (in the early days of the NFL - he was one of the 17 charter inductees of the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963). 

The story circulating around social media more recently involves a legend (more or less true, in most respects) and an old photo of Thorpe at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.  Here is the photograph:

Look closely at the photo on the right.  Thorpe is wearing two different shoes and two different socks.  Apparently, as the legend goes, Thorpe's track shoes were stolen on the morning of one of his competitions.  He borrowed one shoe from a teammate and found another shoe in a garbage can.  One of the shoes was too big for him, so he had to wear an extra sock (hence the mismatched socks in the photo). 

The photo and accompanying texts is used as an example of how not to let excuses dictate your behavior or performance.  It would have been easy for Thorpe to miss his event (after all, he had no shoes!) or show up with an old pair of shoes and not do well.  Rather than making excuses, Thorpe went on to win.  He succeeded in spite of his situation.  To quote one of the posts that I have seen:

Whatever you woke up with this morning; stolen shoes, ill health, failed relationships, financial challenges, crippling debt, lost momentum, it's a new day, new month, new year.  Don't let it stop you from running your race.  Besides, you have no chance of winning if you're not in the race.

It's a great lesson for all of us to remember.  Incidentally, the story is more or less true! The details are not quite exactly known, but according to a Thorpe biographer and founder of the Jim Thorpe Foundation, Bob Wheeler (no relation to me), Thorpe's shoes went missing shortly before the start of the 1500-meter race portion of the decathlon.  He went on to win the race in borrowed shoes!