Jim Thorpe was known to many people as the greatest athlete in the world as of the early to mid nineteen hundreds. He was a very successful athlete from middle school all the way to the professional leagues and in the olympics held in Sweden. In high school Jim was recruited to join any athletic teams including football, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, hockey and track.

His Native american background in long hunting and trapping excursions aided in his physical development, significantly in endurance. In the 1912 olympics he won the pentathlon and the decathlon by 700 point more than the runner up. He also played in professional football for 12 seasons. This shows his ability to succeed at most physical activities. Jim Thorpe in my mind still is the best athlete of all time because of his ability to succeed in so many different sports and athletic events. Jim's life ended in tragic heart attack in the year 1953, and is buried in Pennsylvania even though his children tried to file a law suit to move his burial site back to the reservation in Oklahoma. Jim after a long athletic carreer continued work by acting in mostly stereotypical roles for an indian. He was divorced once and remarried later in life but got divorced again because of a drinking problem. Jim will go down no matter how his life ended as one of the greatest athletes in history whether native american or not.