The Life of Jim Thorpe

Jim Thorpe's athletic career was a marvel. As a two-time Olympic gold medal winner, as well as a professional football, baseball, and basketball player, Thorpe left his mark across a wide array of sports disciplines. A new biography from David Maraniss, Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, offers us a deeper look into Thorpe's life. Raised as a member of the Sac and Fox nation, the young Thorpe was shuttled between Indian boarding schools as a child, where he was subjected to the genocidal assimilation policies of such institutions. He lost his brother to pneumonia at an Indian Agency school, and his mother later passed away from childbirth in Thorpe's teenage years. Although he would later achieve monumental athletic acclaim, Thorpe's career was also marked by setbacks. His Olympic medals were stripped from him (and only posthumously restored) after it was discovered that he had played minor league baseball earlier in his life. Thorpe further struggled with alcoholism, financial difficulties, and broken marriages towards the end of his life. Author David Maraniss joins The Marc Steiner Show to examine Thorpe's life, and what it can teach us about US history.

Studio: Cameron Granadino, Dwayne Gladden
Post-Production: Brent Tomchik

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