James Francis Thorpe was born in a small one-room cabin in the Indian Territory. There's some confusion about the exact date of his birth, though May 28, 1887 is now generally accepted, because it is the one adopted by the Thorpe Estate.

The year 1912 proved a fateful one for Jim Thorpe. Never before had anyone soared so high and flown so far in athletics as the young man with the blood of the Sac and Fox tribes coursing through his veins. That was the year Thorpe came out of obscurity to stake his claim to sports immortality.

It began with the 1912 Olympic Games, the fourth in the revived series that began in 1896. The Olympics has produced many heroes, but even the greatest seldom mastered more than three or four events. Jim Thorpe earned his two Gold Medals in the Decathlon and Pentathlon, which means that he had to practice and perfect the astonishing total of 15 events! (For the Decathlon, Thorpe had to excel in: 100 Meter Dash, Long Jump, Shot Put, High Jump, 400 Meter Dash, 110 Meter Hurdles, Discus Throw, Pole Vault, Javelin Throw, 1500 Meter Run. The Pentathlon added: Shooting, Fencing, Swimming, Riding and the 3000 Meter Cross Country Run.)

Few athletes would even enter two grueling gauntlets like that. Thorpe not only competed, he triumphed!

The modest and dignified student from the Carlisle Indian School shocked the world when he accomplished something no one else had even dreamt of doing. He pulled off the remarkable feat of winning both events.

These amazing victories prompted King Gustav V of Sweden, the host country to proclaim Jim Thorpe "the greatest athlete in the world." His Highness was merely the first of many who reached that conclusion. That included the nation's newspaper journalists, who voted Thorpe the "athlete of the half-century" in the 1950 Associated Press poll.

Jim Thorpe, like Lou Gehrig and Clint Eastwood, was the strong, silent type. He never lusted for headlines and preferred to let his on-field exploits speak for him. An incident at the 1912 Olympics, right at the start of his marvelous career, proved a sign of what sports fans could expect from this quiet and dignified performer.

When King Gustav V called him forth to bestow the title of "world's greatest athlete," the humble Thorpe could only manage, "Thanks, King."

The fact that this is one of the few recorded Thorpe anecdotes shows that he was a very private person, indeed. He would've recoiled from the media circus that swirls around modern day Olympians like Carl Lewis.

Sometimes, rarely, a sports victory means more than just athletic excellence. Jim Thorpe's dominant performance at the 1912 Olympics, like Jesse Owens' triumphs in Germany a generation later, had awesome symbolic value. A Native American proved to everyone, most especially to Euro-Americans, that there was more to Native America than what folks read in racist tracts and tacky dime novels. At a time when sports heroes often set bad examples for the nation's youth, Jim Thorpe stepped forward as an example of dedication, humility and clean living.

With a great Olympics under his belt, Thorpe could've easily ridden his celebrity into the next track season. That's just what he didn't do.

Thorpe took his medals back to Carlisle, put them in the trophy case and donned his football uniform. For Jim Thorpe wasn't just a track and field immortal. The lanky (6'2", 190-lb.) Thorpe set about proving that he was also a multi-sport superstar, possibly the greatest before or since.

Besides his track and field supremacy, he also equaled Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders' feat of playing in both the National Football League and Major League Baseball. Unlike those men, who had relatively short careers, Thorpe's commitment to conditioning and his natural ability allowed him to play running back in the NFL until age 41! Since the average NFL fullback or halfback plays less than five seasons, such longevity is nearly as impressive as Thorpe's outstanding play for Carlisle and the professional Canton Bulldogs, New York Giants, Boston (now Atlanta) Braves, Cincinnati Reds and several other teams.

His most famous baseball manager was Connie Mack, a man who knew a thing or two about baseball talent. Mack often praised Thorpe's speed on the bases and his defensive skills as an outfielder. Only the fact that he divided his focus kept him from mastering hitting against major league opposition. Even so, he batted .327 in his sixth and last big league season before concentrating solely on football. It's likely that he could have become an all-star if he'd put down the pigskin instead of the horsehide.

He didn't just take up space on the Carlisle bench, a campus celebrity on a free ride. When he donned that Carlisle Indian Industrial School jersey, it wasn't just for show. Thorpe scored 25 touchdowns and 198 points to lead his team to the national collegiate football championship. Sportswriters and fans couldn't understand how little Carlisle could defeat all the high-powered "big school" football programs -- until they saw Thorpe thread his way through baffled opponents for touchdown after touchdown.

His special status as a multi-sports superstar led to the saddest chapter in his illustrious life. Thorpe suffered the indignity of having his Gold Medals reclaimed by the Olympic Committee. An impoverished college student before the days of under-the-table stipends to collegiate athletes, Thorpe did what many others did and played some semipro baseball as a sort of "summer job."

It was a technical violation, but the rules themselves were vague, confusing and often honored only in the breach. Thorpe got caught because he played openly, under his real name, while other hid behind phony ones.

The Olympic Committee went Medieval on him, but the rest of society held a more realistic view. Despite this incident, Thorpe stood tall among athletes as a man of integrity. That's why the organization that eventually became the National Football League selected him as its first President.

Sadly, Jim Thorpe did not live to see justice done, but his cause won in the end. His daughter Grace waged a five-year battle to vindicate her father. In 1982, thanks to the campaign she led, the International Olympic Committee returned the two confiscated medals. "The modern day Olympics started in 1896, and they had no hard and fast rules on mixing professional and amateur sports. They sort of made the rules on Dad," said Grace.

Jim Thorpe's Native American name, Wa-Tho-Huk means "Bright Path,." How fitting for a man who not only rose to worldwide fame from comparative obscurity, but who blazed a trail for all who have come after him to follow.

James Francis Thorpe's sports legacy became a matter of public record on May 27, 1999. That's when the 106th session of the US House of Representatives passed HR 198, which designed the gifted Thorpe as "American Athlete of the Century."