News From Indian Country
November 6, 1999
By Suzanne Westerly
Albuquerque, NM (NFIC)
The first award given at NAMA was the Jim Thorpe Sports Award, presented to the Iroquois National lacrosse team. The Iroquois are the only Indigenous nation worldwide participating in international sports competition. They continue the Iroquois tradition of excellence in lacrosse.
The award was presented by Grace Thorpe, daughter of Jim Thorpe.
Jim Thorpe, Sac and Fox of the Thunder Clan, is the only American athlete ever to excel at three major sports: track and field, football, and baseball. Wathahuck (Brightpath) was voted "Athlete of the first Half of the Century" by the Associated Press almost fifty years ago.
At the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, King Gustav V of Sweden said, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world." when he awarded two gold medals to Jim Thorpe for winning the pentathlon and the decathlon.
Thorpe played in major league baseball, and was a founding father of national football as well as the first President of the American Professional Football Association, presently known as the National Football League.
Thorpe was named America's Greatest All Around Athlete in 1950 by the Associated Press and in 1977 by Sport Magazine. He is in the National Track and Field Hall of Fame; Professional Football Hall of Fame; Helms Professional Football Hall of Fame; National Indian Hall of Fame; and in the Pennsylvania and the Oklahoma Halls of Fame.
Grace Thorpe is spearheading a campaign to declare Jim Thorpe "America's Greatest All-Around Athlete of the Century." Grace travels around the country to Indian ceremonies and environmental gatherings, asking people to sign her two petitions - one declaring her father athlete of the century and another for a ban on nuclear activities on tribal lands.
Grace is the director of the National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans, which fights efforts to dump nuclear waste on Native lands.
(*Grace Thorpe has gone over)
