Clash of Titans

On November 9, 1912, American history was very nearly altered during one ordinary event: two young men facing off on a college football field. One of them, Olympic gold medalist Jim Thorpe, was already an American hero. The other, West Point Cadet Dwight Eisenhower, dreamed of achieving that status. In the course of a few brutal hours, one would almost forfeit his future for athletic glory, while the other had one final moment to shine.

Sports Illustrated reporter Lars Anderson’s new book chronicles the history-making contest between the United States Military Academy and the Carlisle (Pa.) Indian School. Yet Carlisle vs. Army–although filled with sports trivia and lively athletic details–isn’t entirely about football. Rather, it’s a classic cowboys-and-Indians story: the cowboys of West Point, with impressive physical and mental prowess, battling the Indians of Carlisle, national football sensations.

Anderson’s young stars, Thorpe and Eisenhower, strove to bring prestige to their schools, and themselves, with famous victories. And his narrative largely focuses on the Carlisle Indians, who hoped to vindicate their ancestors and “play the game of football better than the white man–and better than the sons of the military men who shared the same blood as the soldiers who pulled the triggers at Wounded Knee.”

The major battle was the fateful 1912 encounter. The Indians’ coach, the legendary Glenn “Pop” Warner, rallied his team before the game, telling them that this “was a chance to exact revenge for all the cold-blooded horrors that the white man had inflicted on their people in the past. It was the ancestors of these Army boys .  .  . who had killed and raped the ancestors of the Carlisle players.” The Cadets, expecting a team of Olympians, were surprised to see the slight, “fragile” Indians (with the exception of Thorpe, of course) approach the field. But they would be overwhelmed by the Indians’ groundbreaking technique and “the strength of Thorpe’s golden right foot.”

Jim Thorpe was, perhaps, the most extraordinary man on the gridiron that day. He killed his first buck at age eight and began his successful college athletic career in track and field. He won multiple gold medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, where five months prior to the Army-Carlisle match, King Gustav of Sweden told Thorpe, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.”

Still, Dwight Eisenhower was impressive in his own right. Anderson’s account of his rise from “Little Ike,” the underdog from the wrong side of the tracks in Abilene, Kansas, to West Point football powerhouse and charismatic leader, is inspiring. The future five-star general and president, however, would not triumph against Carlisle. Yet Thorpe and Eisenhower were the perfect match-up: Both had entered college too small and weak to play varsity football, and both had played minor league baseball. By the time they met, Thorpe had become a massive man with “world-class speed and raw power” while Eisenhower “had the perfect temperament for an Army player. From snap to whistle on every play, he gritted his teeth and gave it his all.”

Naturally, the West Pointers were eager to “Get Thorpe,” and Eisenhower and his teammates plotted to hit him hard enough to take him out of the game. Readers may find Ike surprisingly savage in his attempts to injure Thorpe–but the hulking Indian was unaffected. After the first hit failed, Eisenhower and teammate Leland Hobbs tried again, but Thorpe implemented his “famed ‘stop-start’ move, and .  .  . went from a full sprint to standing still in an eye-blink.” Eisenhower and Hobbs collided, and Ike’s knee was so severely injured that he would never again play football–and was only able to graduate from West Point because a generous doctor ignored his injury.

Pop Warner would also triumph at the game. An overweight target for bullies as a boy, he had failed the West Point entrance exams and lost large chunks of money gambling as a young man. But he would not only lead his Indian School team to defeat West Point, he would also “shape the future of football” with his innovations in strategy and public relations.

At the risk of spoiling the game’s outcome for readers, the Indians beat the “white man” at his own game in their own style of football, a “fast-paced ballet of athleticism and grace.” But even for someone who knows the score, Lars Anderson’s account is worth reading for its rich details, particularly of the childhoods of two American heroes. The tragedy lies in the sharp divergence between Thorpe’s fate and Eisenhower’s. Although Ike’s injury ended his football career, and nearly ended his military career, he would eventually become supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and a two-term president of the United States. Thorpe, by contrast, never really succeeded in his post-collegiate careers in professional football and baseball. He became an alcoholic, unable to “find a consistent paycheck,” and died of a heart attack at 64.

The Army-Carlisle game was Jim Thorpe’s last heroic moment, while Dwight Eisenhower’s was yet to come.

Samantha Sault is an editorial assistant at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.