Chris Eyre remembers his grandfather – a World War I veteran – recounting stories about the incredible exploits of Jim Thorpe.
It would be comparable to a Gen-X sports fan today raving about Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders. Eyre – the director of the upcoming HISTORY Channel documentary “Jim Thorpe: Lit by Lightning” — knows that Thorpe belongs in that conversation as one of the greatest athletes in American sports history.
Why wasn’t that getting talked about more? Eyre – who is an executive producer for “Dark Winds” on AMC – would talk about Thorpe to other Native Americans and the response would be, “Who?” That was the launching point for the documentary. Eyre is of Cherokee and Arapaho decent. This meant more.
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“We have native heroes that native youth need to understand and know, and I just wanted to familiarize the public with this great American hero again,” Erye told Sporting News. “As a child I remember hearing about the mismatched shoes at 5 or 6 years old. I don’t remember hearing people talk about Jim Thorpe like they used to.”
That story about Thorpe and mismatched shoes is just one of the legends told in the documentary. Thorpe was a college football star at Carlisle, a two-time gold medal winner at the 1912 Olympics, an MLB player and the first president of what would become the National Football League.
The documentary also details the racism Thorpe – a Native American from the Sac and Fox Nation – endured after the Dawes Act was passed in 1887. Native Americans were forced to assimilate into American society.
“I recognize the things that made him were possibly the paradox of his time and place, which is he was forced into boarding school, he lost his twin brother at nine (years old), he lost both parents both by 11 and he was disenfranchised,” Eyre said. “You either go this way or go that way, and athletics was the mechanism or the means to survival. I’m interested in what happened and why did he excel to become the greatest athlete ever?”
Jim Thorpe’s legendary college, NFL career
The documentary spends considerable time recounting Thorpe’s college football career at Carlisle, a Native American boarding school that would upset Harvard in 1911 and Army in 1912 with Thorpe leading the way.
Thorpe was a two-way player on those teams. “If we look at the NFL today, there is nobody who does what Jim Thorpe did back in the day,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter says during the documentary.
Thorpe was ranked No. 10 on the Sporting News’ all-time greatest college football players list in 2019.
Thorpe would go on to become one of the first stars of professional football with the Canton Bulldogs – and he would be named the first president of what would become the NFL. Eyre brings that story out in great detail.
“To think he was the first president of what would become the NFL and the connection to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, it’s kind of a legacy that is perfect.,” Eyre said. ” If you can imagine the continuity of Carlisle beating Army and an Indian ascending to become the president of what would become the National Football League and the Canton Bulldogs. I love the NFL more than any other sport, and that’s a point of pride. That’s Jim Thorpe.”
(History Channel)
Jim Thorpe’s Olympic career
Thorpe also won gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. He finished first in the decathlon and pentathlon. Dan O’Brien, a gold medalist in the decathlon in the 1996 Summer Olympics, offers insight into those accomplishments. Eyre and O’Brien went to high school together. It’s a nice touch to the documentary.
“Doing poorly in one of those events can take you out,” Eyre said. “To think he won the decathlon and pentathlon in the same Olympics puts him in a place of no other athlete.
Thorpe was stripped of the gold medals by the International Olympic Committee when it was discovered he played two seasons of semi-pro baseball. The IOC restored Thorpe’s medals in 1982, 29 years after his death.
Jim Thorpe’s legacy
In 1950, the Associated Press voted Thorpe as the greatest athlete of the first half of the century ahead of Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and Ty Cobb.
Thorpe played Major League Baseball from 1913-15 and 1917-19, and he hit .327 in his final season with the Boston Braves. He was a two-time All-American, a two-time gold medalist and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“No diss on Bo Jackson but Jim Thorpe was involved in more athletic games,” Eyre said. “It was remarkable what he was able to accomplish, and I want to know more about him as a person.”
Who plays Jim Thorpe in ‘Jim Thorpe: Lit by Lightning?’
An artist named Dukon Harris portrays Thorpe during the historical recreations in the documentary, and that was a stroke of good fortune for Eyre.
“My casting director said, ‘You gotta see this guy,'” Eyre said. “I got the pictures and video and said to myself, ‘He looks like Jim Thorpe.’ She says, ‘It gets better. He’s Sac and Fox, too.’
“Dukon Harris who plays Jim Thorpe in this recreation is a Sac and Fox Nation. He’s from the same tribe as Jim Thorpe,” Eyre said. “When that happened, I said, ‘I think we’ve got a ball game here. … For me as a director, the lightbulb kind of went on that this was Jim Thorpe’s spirits coming down and helping us.”
How to watch ‘Jim Thorpe: Lit by Lightning’
“Jim Thorpe: Lit by Lightning” debuts on History at 8 p.m. ET on Monday. Viewers can stream the documentary on Tuesday.
The documentary was produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter through their platform “Uninterrupted.” The documentary is directed by Chris Eyre and features interviews with Adam Schefter, Jemele Hill and Dan O’Brien along with Jim Thorpe biographers David Maraniss and Kate Buford.
