Meet Michael L. Sheaffer - Author:

It seems that the heroes of our childhood stay reminiscently with us as we grow.  It doesn’t matter what they did or who they were but their legacy lives on in our hearts and can return us to the warm feelings of childhood in an instant.  Jim Thorpe was one of those people to me.  Growing up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania home to the Carlisle Indian School where Jim Thorpe spent many of his school years, I was frequently privy to hearing personal and engaging stories about the infamous Jim Thorpe.  He was then and still remains a legendary presence for Carlisle. Growing up it was as if his history was part of my own and even as an adult I feel Jim Thorpe is part of my own heritage.

Like many small towns, Carlisle hangs on to the connection it has with Jim Thorpe.  Many of his collectibles have been kept on display to ensure that the legacy lives on.  The Cumberland County Historical Society, The Hamilton Library in town and the US Army Military History Research collection all contains fragments from the life and career of Thorpe.  Interestingly enough the Carlisle Barracks is currently a senior army officer’s academy and is located at the exact site where the old Carlisle Indian School used to sit.  I imagine that as time goes on many more young boys will hear the stories of Jim Thorpe and feel a sense of pride and interest in him.  Hopefully I will be able to gently coerce those feelings in others and with pride, spread his good name.

As fate would have it I did get to see Jim Thorpe in person just once.  To me it was as grand an experience as if John Wayne or the president himself had come and shook my hand.  In September of 1951, during the world premier of the Warner Brother’s movie “Jim Thorpe All American” I caught a brief but memorable glimpse of the man that I truly admired.  Unfortunately, it was my first and last time to see him. 

On January 26, 1969 I volunteered to head up a committee for the Carlisle Jaycees.  The goals of this committee were to have Jim Thorpe reinstated as the winner of the 1912 Olympic Pentathlon and Decathlon event.  The effort was called “Project Jim Thorpe” and I spent three years gathering research, collecting facts and finding out the truths behind why Jim Thorpe was removed as the winner of these 1912 Olympic events.  During this time my interest in Jim Thorpe came to an all time peak and I was somehow reunited with the boy in my past and learning to respect a childhood hero all over again.

Perhaps my favorite boyhood memory is a story I heard about Jim Thorpe. The story unfolds as the coach from the Harrisburg, PA rival school awaited the Carlisle Indian School bus to arrive for the upcoming track meet.  As the bus arrived the hosting coach expected to greet the whole team, but was surprised to find that only 3 people exited the bus.  The first was the Carlisle coach, “Pop” Warner, the second was Louis Tewanima and the last was Jim Thorpe.  Puzzled the other coach quickly asked “Pop” where the rest of the team was.  Coach Warner smiled coyly and said “This is the team, Louis does all the running and Jim does everything else.”  The perplexed other coach probably thought his team would win the match hands down.  It turns out that the Carlisle Indian School swept the meet and legend says that Jim Thorpe ran the 18 miles back to Carlisle after the track meet had ended! 

It is no accident that I am the one to offer all the facts about Jim Thorpe in this riveting book entitled “A Hearing for Jim Thorpe, an Exercise in Frustration.”  It seems that I have spent a life time unfolding the story so that the pride and interest I feel in this child hood hero can be shared with the rest of the world.

Michael L. Sheaffer