•HRES 720 IH 
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; 
Whereas prior to the 1912 Olympic Games, Jim Thorpe won 
the pentathlon and the decathlon 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 
three 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 American athlete to 
win a Gold Medal in the decathlon, in which he set a 
world record, and became the only athlete in Olympic his-
tory to win both the pentathlon and the decathlon during 
the same year; 
Whereas at the time Jim Thorpe won two Gold Medals in the 
1912 Olympic Games, Native Americans were not recog-
nized as citizens of the United States until 1924 under 
the Indian Citizenship Act; 
Whereas Native Americans were not granted the right to vote 
in every State until 1957; 
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•HRES 720 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 Jim Thorpe’s Olympic Gold Medals to his 
family in 1982, but did not list him as the sole Gold 
Medal winner for his achievements during the 1912 
Olympic Games; and 
Whereas the International Olympic Committee’s failure to 
update their records disregards the unprecedented 
achievements of one of the best athletes in American his-
tory, the only athlete in Olympic history to win both the 
pentathlon and the decathlon during the same year; the 
first Native American athlete to win Olympic Gold Med-
als for the United States, and the contributions of the 
Sac and Fox Nation in American history: Now, therefore, 
be it 
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•HRES 720 IH 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that the International Olympic Committee, 
through its president, should officially recognize Jim 
Thorpe’s unprecedented athletic achievements as the sole 
Gold Medalist in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon 
events and correct these inaccuracies in the official Olym-
pic books. 
Æ 
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