The Pro Football Hall of Fame voters selected him for the NFL 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1967.
In 1999, the Associated Press placed him third on its list of the top athletes of the century, following Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan. ESPN ranked Thorpe seventh on their list of best North American athletes of the century.
His achievements have received great acclaim from sports journalists, both during his lifetime and since his death. In 1950, an Associated Press poll of almost 400 sportswriters and broadcasters voted Thorpe the “greatest athlete” of the first half of the 20th century. That same year, the Associated Press ranked Thorpe as the “greatest American football player” of the first half of the century.
Jim Thorpe ethnicity: What tribe did Jim Thorpe belong to?
Jim Thorpe’s ethnicity is Caucasian because his parents were both half-Caucasian and were raised as Native American.
Despite the severe racial inequality in the United States, he accomplished his athletic feats. It has often been suggested that his Olympic medals were stripped by the athletic officials because of his ethnicity.
While it is difficult to prove this, the public comment at the time largely reflected this view. When Thorpe won his gold medals, not all Native Americans were recognized as U.S. citizens (the U.S. government had frequently demanded that they make concessions to adopt European-American ways to receive such recognition). Citizenship was not granted to all American Indians until 1924.
When Thorpe attended Carlisle, the students’ ethnicity was used for marketing. The football team was called the Indians.
The school and journalists often portrayed sporting competitions as conflicts of Indians against whites to create headlines.
The first notice of Thorpe in The New York Times was headlined “Indian Thorpe in Olympiad; Redskin from Carlisle Will Strive for Place on American Team.”
Thorpe’s accomplishments were described in a similar racial context by other newspapers and sportswriters throughout his life, reflecting the era.
Source: nflfaqs.com
