Jim Thorpe and the American Professional Football Association

The American Professional Football Association was formed in 1920 and on October 3, 1920, the first ever game under the new organization was played between the Dayton Triangles and the Columbus Panhandles.1 The APFA started when ten teams organized to answer several challenges faced by the teams. Jim Thorpe was its first president while playing in Canton, Ohio.2 Later that same year, four more teams joined the league bringing the total to fourteen. Today, very appropriately, Canton, Ohio is the home of the National Football League Hall of Fame.

Jim Thorpe's Sports Career

Football Career

Jim Thorpe is an American sports legend who was born in May 1887. In his playing days, Thorpe weighed in at 202 pounds and was 6 feet 1 inches tall.3 He began his professional football playing career in 1913 with the Pine Village Pros of Indiana. In 1915, he began playing for the Canton Bulldogs where he played until 1917. In 1919 and 1920, he once again played for the Canton Bulldogs who won the league championship in 1916, 1917, and 1919.4 Jim Thorpe was a threat as a runner, a tackler, as a passer and pass-catcher, and was even competent at punting and kicking. He is noted for saying that football was his favorite sport.5

Thorpe's path to professional sports was in many ways, providential. Thorpe grew up in Oklahoma Territory and attended school there as a child and then attended Haskell Indian Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. Then in 1904, when Thorpe was sixteen years old, his father signed him up to attend the Carlisle School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was a federally-funded boarding school for Native Americans founded in 1879. Jim Thorpe's heritage was partially Sac and Fox and was therefore eligible for free tuition at the Carlisle School.6

As Thorpe was attending Carlisle, he didn't immediately enroll to play sports. His sports career began in 1907. As the legend goes, while passing by track practice one day dressed in overalls, Thorpe asked to try his ability at the high-jump. Thorpe was successful at clearing the bar at a height that also happened to be a school record. Word of Thorpe's ability was reported back to the track and football coach, Glenn Scobey Warner. Although "Pop" Warner intended to reserve Thorpe's skills for track, Thorpe also wanted to try his hand at football. At football tryouts, he wowed the observers, including Coach Warner and thus, a football legend was born. While at Carlisle, Thorpe became a two-time All-American.7

Interestingly, the Carlisle School property was made up of what was the former Carlisle barracks and was transferred back to the Defense Department following World War I on September 1, 1918, ending the Carlisle School. In 1951, when the College Football Hall of Fame inducted their inaugural class, Coach Warner and Jim Thorpe were both inductees.8

Jim Thorpe - Canton Bulldogs

Following the formation of the American Football League in 1920, Thorpe played in a total of 52 games. Here are the teams that Thorpe played for.

• 1920: Canton

• 1921: Cleveland

• 1922: Oorang

• 1923: Oorang

• 1924: Rock Island

• 1925: New York/Rock Island

• 1926: Canton

• 1928: Chicago Cardinals9

Olympic Athlete

Prior to his professional football career, Jim Thorpe won two gold medals in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. His two gold medals were in the pentathlon and the decathlon exemplifying his exceptional athletic ability. His gold medals were later removed as it came to light that he had previously been paid to play minor-league baseball. His gold medals were restored posthumously in 1986.

According to a New York Times article via Wikipedia, here are Thorpe's personal bests in various events.

• Long Jump: 23 feet 6 inches

• High Jump: 6 feet 5 inches

• Pole Vault: 11 feet

• Shot Put: 47 feet 9 inches

• Javelin: 163 feet

• Discus: 136 feet10

Baseball Career

Thorpe's baseball career was less impressive than his football career. However, baseball provided a living as it was the higher paying sport at the time. Thorpe didn't play very much as most of his career was played for the New York Giants and his coach John McGraw didn't favor Thorpe.

Here is a list of teams that Thorpe played for starting in 1913.

• 1913 - New York Giants

• 1914 - New York Giants

• 1915 - New York Giants

• 1916 - Milwaukee Brewers(minor league)

• 1917 - New York Giants

• 1918 - New York Giants

• 1919 - New York Giants and traded to Boston Braves midseason11

All-Around Athlete

Thorpe also tried his hand at professional basketball during several seasons in the 1920s and even contemplated playing hockey in 1913 instead of football. In 1912, his final year in college, he also won the national championship in ballroom dancing. He was truly an all-around athlete.12

Jim Thorpe's playing career ended at the age of 41 in 1928. In 1950, Thorpe was chosen as the greatest American athlete of the first half of the 20th century.

The Founding of the American Professional Football Association

In 1920, the individual teams were facing several challenges. First, salaries for players had begun to rise substantially. Higher salaries incentivized the players to jump from team to team following the highest paying team, creating a market the teams wanted more control over. Lastly, some teams were using players that were still enrolled in college.13

The league was officially created as the American Professional Football Association(APFA) with four teams from Ohio, two teams from Indiana, one team from New York, and three teams from Illinois. With Thorpe as the president, teams were supposed to pay $100 per year to the organization but most didn't. As the league was just beginning, the founders believed that football could one day rival the sport of baseball in American popularity. Baseball was currently considered America's pastime.14

On June 24, 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League. Today, the headquarters of the NFL is located in New York City.

The History of Football Before 1913

Here are some of the important dates and events which led to the rules of the game and growth of football prior to 1913. Naturally, college football preceded professional football and as more players became familiar with the sport via college programs, this led to more players playing professionally after college.

1869: First College Football Game

The first college football game occurred between Rutgers University and New Jersey College which was later renamed Princeton. Both colleges were located in New Jersey. Rutgers was originally called Queens College and was affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. Today it is a state university of New Jersey and is the eighth oldest college in the United States. The original campus was located at New Brunswick to the southwest of New York City and Princeton was located a few miles further southewest from New York City.15

Strangely, although this is considered to be the first gridiron football game, the rules as well as the score resembled soccer more than the modern game of football with Rutgers winning 6-4.

1892: The First Professional Football Player

In 1892, the first football player to be paid was William (Pudge) Heffelfinger, who played for the Alleghany Athletic Association. He was paid $500 to play against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club on November 12. The investment paid off as the Alleghany Athletic Association won 4 to 0. The following year the Pittsburgh Athletic Club had their first paid player, half-back Grant Dibert, under contract for the entire year.16

1899: The Oldest Running NFL Team is Formed

In 1899, the Morgan Athletic Club was created by Chris O'Brien in Chicago. Today, the team is known as the Arizona Cardinals and was one of the founding teams in 1920, known as the Racine Cardinals. Their cross-town rivals, the Decatur Staleys, became known as the Chicago Bears. The Chicago Cardinals remained in Chicago until 1960 when they moved to St. Louis.17

1906: The Forward Pass Is Legalized

On September 5, 1906 the forward pass was first utilized by Bradbury Robinson of Carrol College. The forward pass was extremely risky as an incomplete pass resulted in an automatic turnover according to the rules. There was also no such thing as pass interference and so teams could tackle a receiver before catching the ball. Therefore, running the ball was still the predominant play. Football was a lethal sport in those days and there were 31 football related deaths during the 1908-09 season alone.18

1911: First Play-By-Play Telegraphed Game

The first play-by-play telegraphed football game was in Lawrence, Kansas between the University of Kansas Jayhawks and the University of Missouri Tigers on November 25, 1911. The game was played in Columbia, Missouri and about 1,000 people gathered in downtown Lawrence where telegraphs from a Western Union telegraph wire were received. Some call this the beginning of sports broadcasting.19

1912: A Touchdown Becomes 6 Points

In 1912, a touchdown was raised from being worth five points, to six points. In 1909, a field goal had been lowered from being worth four points to three points.20

Conclusion

Life in America and the world at large was changing dramatically from 1913 to 1920 and the formation of what became the NFL is just one more example of this. Jim Thorpe came to be an American icon and with other athletes like Babe Ruth also becoming famous during this same time period, the age of the sports celebrity was just beginning.

Sources:

1. NFL.com. “NFL 100.” Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.nfl.com/100/original-towns/.

2. Pfhof. “Jim Thorpe | Pro Football Hall of Fame.” Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.profootballhof.com/players/jim-thorpe/.

3. The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Jim Thorpe Facts & Stats.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/facts/Jim-Thorpe-American-athlete.

4. HISTORY. “Canton Bulldogs Claim NFL’s First Title,” September 13, 2021. Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-nfl-title-canton-bulldogs.

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6. Pfhof. Jim Thorpe.

7. Klein, Christopher. “How Jim Thorpe Became America’s First Multi-Sport Star.” HISTORY, June 1, 2023. Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.history.com/news/jim-thorpe-sports-native-american-athlete-olympics.

8. Sports Museums. “College Football Hall of Fame Inductees 1951-1960 | Sports Museums,” August 5, 2010. Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.sportsmuseums.com/hallsoffame/football/college-football-hall-of-fame/inductees-1951-1960/.

9. Pfhof. Jim Thorpe.

10. Times, New York. “Jim Thorpe Is Dead on West Coast at 64.” The New York Times, March 29, 1953. Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/1953/03/29/archives/jim-thorpe-is-dead-on-west-coast-at-64-jim-thorpe-dead-on-the-coast.html.

11. Jensen, Don. 2022. “Jim Thorpe.” June 17, 2022. Accessed March 16, 2024. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jim-thorpe/.

12. Klein. How Jim Thorpe Became America's First Multi-Sport Star.

13. “1913 | Pro Football Hall of Fame.” n.d. Pfhof. Accessed March 16, 2024. https://www.profootballhof.com/football-history/football-history/1869-1939/1913/.

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18. Klein, C. (2023, June 1). How the Forward Pass Saved Football. HISTORY. Retrieved March 16, 2024, from https://www.history.com/news/forward-pass-football-invented-origins

19. Be On Air. (2023, September 13). The history of sports broadcasting. Be on Air. Retrieved March 16, 2024, from https://beonair.com/history-of-sports-broadcasting

20. "1913." Pfhof.