Isaac Seneca Isaac Seneca , Jr . ( October 7 , 1874 – 1945 ) was an All - American football player for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School . He was selected as an All - American halfback on the 1899 College Football All - America Team . He was the first Carlisle player and the first American Indian to be selected as an All - American . He was born in 1874 on the Cattaraugus Reservation in New York . All - American for Carlisle . Seneca was a member of the Seneca tribe who grew up on the Cattaraugus Reservation in western New York State . Seneca played football for Carlisle from 1896 to 1899 and 1901 . The first Carlisle football team was formed in 1895 , and Seneca was the school ' s first All - American — nearly a decade before Jim Thorpe began playing for the school . In 1896 , Carlisle played games against college football ' s " Big Four " ( Harvard , Yale , Princeton , and Penn ) and nearly defeated Yale . " The New York Times " reported on a run by Seneca that nearly won the game against Yale : " Seneca was given the ball to go through the centre . He got through with one or two Yale men hanging on to him . Then he squirmed and shook off the Yale men , dodged a man or two , and , making a splendid run down the field , made what was thought to be a touchdown . Nearly all on the grounds shouted themselves hoarse . Men waved their hats in the air , pretty gals clapped their hands . . . " However , the referee waved off the touchdown , ruling that Seneca was " down " when the Yale players hung on to him . " The New York Times " wrote the next day that the referee had made the wrong call and that Carlisle had been robbed of a touchdown , but the game went into the record books as a 12 - 6 win for Yale . Isaac Senca ' s brother , Victor Seneca , also played for Carlisle . On the train returning from a game against the University of Pennsylvania in 1897 , Victor was killed when he put his head out the window of the train and was struck by a telegraph pole . In 1899 , Glenn " Pop " Warner was hired as the head football coach and athletic director at Carlisle . In Warner ' s first season at Carlisle , the Carlisle team faced a difficult schedule , playing games against top opponents and traveling to games in New York ( twice ) , Philadelphia , Phoenix and San Francisco . The 1899 Carlisle team posted an 8 - 2 record and was ranked fourth in the nation . Carlisle defeated Columbia 42 - 0 in a game played in Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day 1899 with 10 , 000 fans in attendance . Seneca was the star of the game , having two runs of 30 yards and another of 40 yards . A press account of the game said : " The Indians were in prime physical condition and bore through the Columbia line and skirted the ends at will . At least eight times the Carlisle backs got around the ends for runs of thirty to sixty yards . Most of these runs were made by Seneca and Miller . " At the end of the 1899 season , Seneca was elected as captain of the 1900 team ( though he would opt to play professional football rather than return in 1900 ) . After the regular season , the Carlisle team accepted an invitation to play the University of California in San Francisco on Christmas Day . Carlisle won the game , 2 - 0 . The Carlisle school newspaper wrote the following about Seneca after his return from California in January 1900 : " Isaac Seneca , the newly elected Captain , felt it an honor to be chosen as Captain for such a team . He never had an idea that he would see the Pacific Ocean . In that trip he had learned more of the geography of the country than he could have learned from books . When he used to play on the scrub teams for amusement , he never had an idea that he would reach the first team , and now that he was chosen captain he felt the great responsibility and honor of his position . He paid Mr . Thompson tribute as an excellent athletic teacher . " After the 1899 season , Seneca was also honored by being named a first team All - American — the first Carlisle player and the first American Indian to be so honored . He was later named by Athlon Athletics to the All - Time American Indian College Football Team . In a 1960 feature article about the Carlisle Indians , " Sports Illustrated " noted that the accomplishments of Seneca and Thorpe created an " ageless myth " for the American Indians : " There was an element of grandeur , something almost mythological , in the rise of the Carlisle Indians to national and then to world fame . . . And the Indians had an incentive to save their people as poignant as any in history . Isaac Seneca , for instance , came from a New York tribe that was down to 2 , 700 survivors . There were only about 600 left in the Oklahoma tribe to which Jim Thorpe belonged . Their tribes were perishing , and the epic striving of the Carlisle Indians was a last great effort to reach the unattainable . . . " Professional football . After leaving Carlisle , Seneca briefly played professional football for the Greensburg Athletic Association in Greensburg , Pennsylvania . In an October 1900 game against Altoona , Seneca made several substantial gains , including a 25 - yard run and a 50 - yard touchdown run . During a game against Latrobe in 1900 , a fight broke out between Seneca and Latrobe ' s quarterback , Al Kennedy . The crowd of 2 , 000 spectators joined in what one historic account has called " a general donnybrook . " Later years . Information on Seneca ' s later years is lacking , though a 1917 publication noted that a Carlisle graduate named Isaac Seneca was the head of the blacksmithing department at the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School near Ponca City , Oklahoma . A 1928 article notes that Seneca is now " in the government service " . At the time of the 1930 United States Census , Seneca was listed as a blacksmith working in Ponca City , Oklahoma . Seneca moved back to New York sometime between 1937 and 1940 ; at the time of the 1940 United States Census , he was living at the Cattaraugus Reservation , Erie County , New York , listed as widowed , working as a blacksmith . Isaac Seneca is interred at United Missions Cemetery at the Cataraugus Reservation in the Seneca Nation , Erie County , New York .