If you enjoy the content here and would like to help support our mission of celebrating great Native athletes of the past and present, please take a look at our NDN All-Stars Shop. Proceeds from every purchase help us continue to retell these stories. Also, if you would like to donate to this effort, please visit our Patreon page.
Thank you for your support!
In this blog post, I want to change up a little bit and – instead of focusing on one individual athlete, I would like to talk about one the most influential football programs in the storied history of the gridiron.
And, while the tragedies that came along with the whole Indian Boarding School concept (and there were countless horrible things that occurred at those institutions) are still being uncovered, this post is about one of the more positive outcomes from that failed social experiment.
A lot has been written about the Carlisle Indians, Jim Thorpe, Pop Warner and more, and deservedly so. What was created at Carlisle when you view things through a sports program lens, the accomplishments of the teams from Carlisle are astounding!
Instead of me rehashing a lot of facts and statistics, I would like to point you to some books written by a lot smarter people than me who have researched and dug and discovered all the great information we want to know about Carlisle football.
There are many more books about some of the athletes who attended and played at Carlisle – Jim Thorpe, Chief Bender, Joe Guyon, Albert Exendine – the list goes on. I will talk about some of those when I post about the individuals.
If you have a favorite book about the football program at Carlisle Industrial School, leave a comment and tell me which one and why. I would love to hear about it.
And – in celebration of the Carlisle Industrial School and their dominant football team, here is the Carlisle School March. (Imagine if the band played this after every touchdown like colleges do with their Fight Songs today… the band would be exhausted!)
If you enjoy the content here and would like to help support our mission of celebrating great Native athletes of the past and present, please take a look at our NDN All-Stars Shop. Proceeds from every purchase help us continue to retell these stories. Also, if you would like to donate to this effort, please visit our Patreon page.
Thank you for your support!
I selected Jack Dempsey (Cherokee) for the NDN All-Stars team because – he was the best and toughest boxer of the first half of the 20th Century, and the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World for SEVEN YEARS!
There have been a lot of books written about NDN All-Star #6 Jack Dempsey (Cherokee) so there are tons of resources where you can find out more about his life and his boxing career. I will provide a short list of some of the books that I have read below. His story of growing up in poverty and having to fight in bars and back alleys to earn food money gives you an idea of the determination he had to make it to the top.
And on July 4, 1919 – in Toledo, OH, he did just that. Dempsey shocked the world when he savagely beat the reigning Heavyweight Champion Jess Willard into submission. The extent of the beating cannot be exaggerated. Willard’s face was a bloody pulp, he lost teeth, and had his jaw and facial bones broken. You can see the actual fight here.
After boxing, Jack Dempsey became a successful business man and restaurant owner. He also dabbled in acting, making a few movies in Hollywood.
NDN All-Star #6 Jack Dempsey’s legacy and impact on the sport of boxing lives on today. His fighting style is studied and emulated by current fighters of all weight classes. Former Heavyweight Champion “Iron” Mike Tyson has said many times that his ultimate boxing hero – and the fighter that he tried most to emulate – is Jack Dempsey.
If you enjoy the content here and would like to help support our mission of celebrating great Native athletes of the past and present, please take a look at our NDN All-Stars Shop. Proceeds from every purchase help us continue to retell these stories. Also, if you would like to donate to this effort, please visit our Patreon page.
Thank you for your support!
NDN All-Stars – promoting great Native athletes from the past and the present!
Well, here is the story. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I had some surgery and was laid up for a bit. To help pass the time, my dad bought me a book – “The Jim Plunkett Story – The Saga of the Man Who Came Back”. While I was not a big Raiders fan, my dad said “Read it. You’ll like it.” So – I read it.
It is truly an inspirational story, and I recommend it to anyone who is a football fan – or anyone who wants to read a story about overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds… that sort of thing.
Here is the thing that REALLY stood out to me. Jim Plunkett is of Cherokee descent. He is an INDIAN dude! (Although he is also Hispanic – and that was the main “label” that was attached to him…)
I thought that was pretty cool! And it got my 11-12 year old brain wondering… are there other Indian athletes out there? I knew of Jim Thorpe, of course. Doesn’t everyone? Particularly football fans? But – what about other athletes? Oh! Wait! I am a University of Washington Huskies fan – and they had this great quarterback named Sonny Sixkiller! Yeah! That’s another one… I wonder who else?
And so it went. Time went by. I would think about this from time to time, and then put it on the back burner again.
Fast forward to 2017. I had been a commercial artist and graphic designer for a number of years and got the opportunity to become a high school art teacher – something I never thought I would do. The student population at Omak High School, where I currently teach art, is about half Native American, being located adjacent to the reservation of the Colville Confederated Tribes in Eastern Washington State.
After some months of interacting with about 150 students a day, I noticed something interesting. A LOT of kids – boys and girls – wore shirts and hats featuring sports heroes and teams. Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. Russell Wilson. Ichiro. Derek Jeter. Etc, etc, etc. That’s all well and good. But it struck me – do these kids know of any actual Native American athletes? Past or current? So – I asked. “Does anyone know who Jim Thorpe was? I know this is Art Class, but I am curious…” A couple of kids half-way put their hands up…“Didn’t he play football or something?”
So I took a couple of minutes and talked about how – yes, he DID play football, but was also the first Native American to win Gold Medals in the Olympics – AND he played major league baseball – and had a barnstorming basketball team – AND was the first president of what became the National Football League… an Indian guy – who grew up on the Rez (and went to Indian Boarding School) and had to deal with racism and a lot of the stuff that many of the kids I was talking to deal with.
That was the moment that really prompted me to take that kernel of an idea I had when I was 11 or 12 and do something with it.
Which brings us to NDN All-Stars. This is intended to be a platform where Native athletes from the past and the present can be featured and promoted to today’s youth – Native, white, black, purple – whatever label people feel they need to put on. There are tremendous inspirational stories of kids coming from such humble beginnings – just like Omak, or Nespelem, or pick any number of small towns on or near Indian Reservations, and going on to reach the top of their game. I already mentioned gold medals, so there are NDN All-Stars who have won world championships, thrown no-hitters, been elected to the Hall of Fame in their sport… and their stories need to be told and re-told – and reintroduced to today’s youth.
That is the humble beginning and basic foundation of NDN All-Stars.
If you enjoy the content here and would like to help support our mission of celebrating great Native athletes of the past and present, please take a look at our NDN All-Stars Shop. Proceeds from every purchase help us continue to retell these stories. Also, if you would like to donate to this effort, please visit our Patreon page.
Thank you for your support!
Celebrating Great Native American Athletes Past & Present! Dismiss
