Undefeated Book Review

 

 Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

Sheinkin, Steve. UNDEFEATED: JIM THORPE AND THE CARLISE INDIAN SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM. New York: Square Fish, 2019.

ISBN:  ‎ 978-1250294470

Jim Thorpe is a an Olympic gold medalist in the pentathlon and decathlon. He is also consistently ranked among the greatest football players and athletes in history. He played minor and professional baseball. He is also a member of the Sac and Fox tribe of Oklahoma: a Native American who was able to use his natural athleticism to be a reluctant ambassador for his people to the racist world that viewed Native Americans as monolithic savages with incomprehensible language and ridiculous customs. Jim Thorpe would never have volunteered or considered himself to be a representative for Native Americans (he just wanted to run, or hit a ball, or pass on the field), but he and the Carlisle Indian School football team changed many people's perceptions of Native people and were great heroes for their own people to cheer and look up to. As they changed the game of football, they changed many perceptions.

Undfeated Book Trailer

The Carlisle Indian School was started by Richard Henry Pratt, a veteran of the wars against Native Americans that the US government waged in the years after the Civil War, where he considered "that as an army officer I was there to deal with atrocious aborigines" (p. 26). His motto at Carlisle Indian School was, "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man" (p. 29). Upon arrival at the school, Native boys were required to cut their hair. The uniform was reminiscent of the uniforms of a military school: no animal skin clothes from home or moccasins. Each student had to adopt a white name, and they were forbidden from speaking their native languages. If caught speaking in their native language, the students were beaten or put into solitary confinement. All of this horrific treatment was done as a seeming kindness to the Native students. They were being "taught" to be a part of white culture, so that they could thrive. Many students benefited from the education they received, going on to be lawyers and other professionals. However, they all stated in later interviews that the stripping of their cultural identity was soul-wrenching and traumatic. For other students who weren't able to translate an education at Carlisle into professional success, it was just a dismal experience.

Jim Thorpe: All American Athlete, Olympian, Hero short film

Steve Sheinkin's Undefeated is riveting nonfiction that tells the story of Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School football team who for one year was undefeated against the major football schools of the early 1900s: among them Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, and Cornell. Sheinkin uses extensive research to bring the people alive in this book, using their own words sometimes  We learn the early innovators of the Carlisle team and watch them grow into the powerhouse they became with Jim Thorpe on their team. Sheinkin is able to weave his research into a readable story about people, their attitudes towards Native Americans, and football as a cultural touchstone for both the country and for the Native people. I am not a sports fan. I know nothing about football: how its played, its history, or its evolution. Sheinkin made me care! He was able to write an historically supported narrative and make it interesting and important. He was a careful historian as well. He made sure to include the good and the bad historical accounts. For example, Pop Warner. Pop Warner is the coach of the Carlisle Indian football team who helps lead them through their undefeated season. Sheinkin shows the reader in many ways that Pop Warner was an excellent football coach. However, he also shows how Pop Warner was not, necessarily, a good man. He was often abusive and racist. At a pivotal moment in Jim Thorpe's life, Warner lied and betrayed him. Sheinkin writes the complexities of people and history. The book also has extensive end notes and bibliographies (about 80 pages worth).

Program Connection

Students will choose three new facts they learned from this book. They will write a short precis indicating what they learned, why it is important to them and to the book, and what evidence Sheinkin used to verify that fact.