IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 345 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the International 
Olympic Committee should correct the Olympic records for Jim Thorpe 
for his unprecedented accomplishments during the 1912 Olympic Games. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 22, 2021 
Mr. LUCAS (for himself, Mr. MULLIN, Mrs. BICE of Oklahoma, Mr. HERN, 
and Mr. COLE) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the International Olympic Committee should correct the 
Olympic records for Jim Thorpe for his unprecedented 
accomplishments during the 1912 Olympic Games. 
Whereas Wa-Tho-Huk or ‘‘Bright Path’’, known as James 
Francis Thorpe or ‘‘Jim Thorpe’’ of the Thunder Clan of 
the Sac and Fox Nation, was born May 22, 1887, on the 
Reservation of the Sac and Fox Nation in Prague, Okla-
homa, and died March 28, 1953, in Lomita, California; 
Whereas Jim Thorpe attended the Carlisle Indian School in 
Pennsylvania and established his amateur football record 
playing halfback, defender, punter, and place-kicker while 
a student and was subsequently chosen as Walter Camp’s 
First Team All-American Half-Back in 1911 and 1912; 
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•HRES 345 IH 
Whereas prior to the 1912 Olympic Games, Jim Thorpe 
placed second in the pentathlon at the Amateur Athletic 
Union National Championship Trials in Boston, Massa-
chusetts; 
Whereas Jim Thorpe represented the United States as an en-
rolled member of the Sac and Fox Nation, the largest of 
3 federally recognized Tribes of Sauk and Meskwaki 
(Fox), in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swe-
den; 
Whereas at the 1912 Olympic Games, he won a Gold Medal 
in the pentathlon, became the first athlete from the 
United States to win a gold medal in the decathlon, in 
which he set a world record, and became the only athlete 
in Olympic history to win both the pentathlon and the de-
cathlon during the same year; 
Whereas at the time Jim Thorpe won 2 Gold Medals in the 
1912 Olympic Games, and not until 1924 under the In-
dian Citizenship Act, Native Americans were not recog-
nized as citizens of the United States; 
Whereas Native Americans were not granted the right to vote 
in every State until 1957; 
Whereas Jim Thorpe was a founding father of professional 
football, playing with the Canton Bulldogs, which was the 
team recognized as world champion in 1916, 1917, and 
1919, the Cleveland Indians, the Oorang Indians, the 
Rock Island Independent, the New York Giants, and the 
Chicago Cardinals; 
Whereas, in 1920, Jim Thorpe was named the first president 
of the American Professional Football Association, now 
known as the National Football League; 
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•HRES 345 IH 
Whereas Jim Thorpe was voted America’s Greatest All- 
Around Male Athlete and chosen as the greatest football 
player of the half-century in 1950 by an Associated Press 
poll of sportswriters; 
Whereas Jim Thorpe was named the Greatest American 
Football Player in history in a 1977 national poll con-
ducted by Sport Magazine; 
Whereas because of his outstanding athletic achievements, 
Jim Thorpe was the first Native American inducted into 
the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, the Profes-
sional Football Hall of Fame, the Helms Professional 
Football Hall of Fame, the National Native American 
Hall of Fame, the Pennsylvania Hall of Fame, and the 
Oklahoma Hall of Fame; 
Whereas the Amateur Athletic Union of 1973 restored the 
amateur status of Jim Thorpe for the years 1909 
through 1912; 
Whereas the International Olympic Committee returned du-
plicates of gold medals won by Jim Thorpe to his family 
in 1982, but did not list him as the sole gold medal win-
ner for his achievements during the 1912 Olympic 
Games; and 
Whereas the failure of the International Olympic Committee 
to update the records regarding Jim Thorpe disregards 
the unprecedented achievements of one of the best ath-
letes in the history of the United States, the only athlete 
in Olympic history to win both the pentathlon and the de-
cathlon during the same year, the first Native American 
athlete to win Olympic gold medals for the United States, 
and the contributions of the Sac and Fox Nation in the 
history of the United States: Now, therefore, be it 
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•HRES 345 IH 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that the International Olympic Committee, 
through the president of the Committee, should officially 
recognize the unprecedented athletic achievements of Jim 
Thorpe as the sole gold medalist in the 1912 pentathlon 
and decathlon events and correct these inaccuracies in the 
official Olympic books. 
Æ 
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