Top 100 Pro Football Books of All-Time By Chris Willis, NFL Films

[TanksAndSpartans]

Originally Posted by Bored5000

John, thanks for the kind words. I dug out my copy of "Native American Son" to see what it had to see about Thorpe's time in Portsmouth. The book is largely chronological, so there are a couple pages about Portsmouth. Here is a passage about Thorpe's time in Portsmouth that you may find interesting. The passage is referring to Thorpe's contract with City of Portsmouth director of public relations Jack Creasy:

"When Creasy set up a final, eleventh game of the season, Jim said he would neither coach nor play. His contract was for ten games, he said, not more. Though Creasy offered him a salary increase, he refused. Once again, he felt he was being used unfairly, though the Portsmouth manager and backers had clearly thrown themselves enthusiastically into building a winning team and were proud of their famous coach. Once he got a grudge in his head, he was too proud or too stubborn to act rationally. "

Thanks Eddie - nice find - I wasn’t expecting that to even be mentioned in the book.

I once wrote up a wordier perspective on the same events. My version condenses and paraphrases what I read because in “Home & Away” Becker has a whole chapter on this season:

In late summer of 1927, things didn’t look good for the Portsmouth Presidents. But then Jack Creasy bought their equipment, got some corporate funding, and went after a player-coach… none other than one Jim Thorpe. By late September Thorpe was in Portsmouth ready to take charge of the team now known as the Shoe-Steels. Given Thorpe’s age, from what I recall, it was never planned for him to be a 60 minute man. I believe one newspaper mentioned that the plan was he would go in and play the second half of the games. But, he was still the coach, and as such had responsibility for running practices, etc. - the success/failure of the season would be on his shoulders. Thorpe wound up battling injuries all season. He definitely had some games where he starred and led the team to victory (especially with his foot) and some other games he missed entirely with injuries. It was a season that finally saw the dominant (non-NFL) team in the region, the Ironton Tanks, have a down year. There would be a new "champion" and with the second best record, the Steels positioned themselves to have a shot at the title. It was all set up that the Steels would play the Ashland Armcos for the championship of the Ohio Valley and the Tri-State.....

This is where things get weird (or so I used to think). A few days before the big game, for an undisclosed personal reason, that may or may not have had to do with his dogs (Becker didn't get into this, he just mentioned dogs may have been used as an explanation for needing to leave. It made sense to me at the time since I thought of the Oorang Kennels, but knowing what I know now, I'm not even sure why the dogs were mentioned). Anyway, Thorpe wanted to leave Portsmouth before the "championship" game. He argued his contract, which was for 10 games had been fulfilled. Creasy did his best to get him to stay, but Thorpe left. The Steels would lose the game. With just minutes remaining and the Steels leading 6-0, Johnny Stuart of the Armcos returned a punt 54 yards to the two which would soon result in a touchdown and a successful point after. The final score was 7-6. Despite the disappointment, Portsmouth had gotten a taste of what is was like to play for a title and things were just getting warmed up for them. They would eventually fulfill that dream in 1935, but it was bittersweet as they would do so in a different city. What I was wondering is what if Thorpe had wanted to be a part of the team right when they were on the cusp of success? History could’ve been completely different, the name of Jim Thorpe might have become synonymous with the Portsmouth Spartans! Would they have still had to go to Detroit or could they have somehow become another Green Bay? But given this new insight into Thorpe, it all makes more sense now.

P.S. What you mention about the apocryphal story of Thorpe's reply to King Gustav V., reminds me a lot of some of the myth busting done in Johnny Blood's bio.

I mention one Jim Thorpe story in relation to Jimmy Claxton's many attempts to integrate baseball in my book (sorry for self-promotion), here's the excerpt;

"In a demonstration of the preposterous chances of Claxton integrating Southern California baseball; the PCL's Vernon Tigers turned down an offer to acquire Olympic gold medalist Jim Thorpe. Though he had hit .330 the previous season, Vernon manager Essick shot down the trade for Thorpe because, 'He was too good', and 'figured the Indian could not be blended in his baseball machine - that he wouldn't harmonize with the pale-faces on the club, either in temperament or pigment.'" (Los Angeles Times, February 7, 1921)

Too good?