Thorpe played basketball too

April 13, 2008

In March 2005 Anthony Barone, Jr. found a ticket in a book he had purchased for $6.00 at an auction. What is remarkable about this unusual event is that a ticket to a March 1, 1927 basketball game involving Jim Thorpe and his World Famous Indians dropped out of the book. Big Jim’s involvement in March Madness is not much known about today although it was covered in newspapers of the day.

When Jim first started playing basketball is not known. The first known documentation of his playing on the Freshman Class and Carlisle Indian School varsity teams in January 1909. So, Jim played hoops competitively long before the ticket date. If he played competitively after the 1909 season is not known either. However, he definitely played in 1927.

That he had formed the World Famous Indians or Oorang Indians, as they were sometimes referred to, was widely reported in November 1926. Also reported were the names of his teammates:

  • Raymond West, “Light Foot,” Cheyenne, forward
  • Dennis Hildebrand, “Eagle Feather,” Cherokee, guard probably
  • Leo Wapp, “Running Hawk,” Sac and Fox, guard
  • Jess Parton, “Swift Deer,” Delaware, forward
  • Dale Peters, college player from Indiana, center
  • Fred Cooke, college player from Indiana, guard

Although the team was advertised as being an Indian team, the closest two of the team’s stars got to being Indians was to have lived in Indiana. The WFI played a heavy schedule of games in the Midwest and east. At 39, Jim was nearing the end of his competitive athletic career so didn’t play full games as he had when he was young. A quarter of intense exercise on the court was enough for him. As of March 31, 1927 Jim Thorpe’s hoopsters were 42-14 with the season not yet finished and baseball just around the corner. Instead of barnstorming with an all-Indian team that summer, Jim played baseball with a team of college players he and Ohio State University star Chic Harley put together.

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March Madness

April 11, 2008

Pardon me while I go off topic. I promise not to do this frequently. Watching the NCAA championship game Monday night brought back some memories – not as a player, besides being short, I was not very good – growing up in downstate Illinois. You see, the term “March Madness” was coined in Illinois to describe its then wide-open high school basketball tournament. This format gave even the smallest schools a shot at beating the large schools and sometimes David won. In 1952 Hebron, with a student population of 98, beat Quincy in overtime to become the smallest school to be state champions. The town continues to celebrate the Green Giants’ victory on their globe-shaped water tower that is painted to resemble a basketball. I recall the 1964 Cobden Appleknockers’ run for glory. This four-year high school boasting a student body of 128, half of which were girls, fielded a team that included two brothers and three cousins. The team dedicated its season to starting guard Tom Crowell who had drowned. The Appleknockers did not win it all, losing 50-45 to the Pekin Chinks. I don’t tease anyone about their team’s name because our local high school, Boiling Springs, calls its teams the Bubblers.

During the introductions I noticed that Ed Hightower was one of the officials. While attending graduate school at Indiana University I observed that he officiated many of their games. Someone with season tickets informed me that Indiana officials – read Bobby Knight – considered him to be the best. I recalled the Hightower name from one of the old guys who held court in the closest thing we had to a malt shop. He praised the play of a Hightower who had played for nearby Alton High some years prior. I never saw or heard much more about Hightower the basketball player. My wife and I notice that Ed Hightower still works a lot of Indiana and Texas Tech games. A few years ago she noticed that Ed was developing male pattern baldness.

After this year’s March Madness subsided I looked up Ed Hightower on the internet and found that he is too young to be the person those guys were talking about. However, his day job is as Superintendent of Edwardsville, Illinois schools, the same district that I attended from grades 4 through 9. He is also on the Board of Trustees for Southern Illinois at Edwardsville where I got my bachelor’s degree some decades ago. Seeing Ed officiate those games brings back memories of following snow plows to important games and waiting for a repair crew to replace a backboard shattered in pre-game warm-ups.

Although Ed Hightower has received awards for his work, the Golden Whistle most notable, and has been selected to work twelve Final Fours, his job has not always been the easiest. A notable example was the game he worked in which Chris Webber called a timeout he didn’t have. He has missed games due to injury but at least, as my wife noticed, his baldness seems to have gone away.

 

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Jim Thorpe’s Gloves

April 7, 2008

A mystery has haunted me since shortly after starting to research Lone Star Dietz’s life. Today, with the help of Freddie Wardecker, proprietor of Wardecker’s Mens Wear and Jim Thorpe Museum, and Bob Wheeler, Jim Thorpe’s biographer who, along with his wife Florence Ridlon, succeeded in getting Thorpe’s Olympic medals restored, I solved that mystery.

Lone Star Dietz died in 1964 and his wife, Doris, died three years later. Mary Lou Zientek had befriended the Dietzes and served as executrix of Doris’s estate. The estate consisted mostly of Lone Star’s memorabilia that included promotional photos for his movies and a pair of Jim Thorpe’s gloves. Mrs. Zientek donated many of the items from the Dietz estate to a museum in Pittsburgh. I was unsuccessful in locating any of these items in any museum in Pittsburgh. Today that changed.

Freddie Wardecker told me of a museum in Boca Raton, Florida owned by a man named Joel Platt. It seems that Mr. Platt wanted to build his museum just outside Carlisle some years ago but was turned down, so looked elsewhere. Last week Bob Wheeler mentioned Joel Platt in another context stating that he was from Pittsburgh. Today the light came on for me after Freddie chided me for not being able to locate Platt’s museum on the internet. Following his directions, the web site for Platt’s museum immediately popped up. After a little navigation, Jim Thorpe’s page appeared: http://www.sportsimmortals.com/thumb.cfm?ID=133&category=11&startrow=9

One item jumped out at me. I could never understand why Lone Star had a pair of Jim Thorpe’s gloves or why he would have kept them so long because I thought they were just ordinary men’s gloves. Well, these are not ordinary gloves. Seeing them will explain everything.

The photo shows other items related to Jim Thorpe’s time in Carlisle. Now that the Cumberland County Historical Society has funds for acquiring artifacts, perhaps they can bring Jim Thorpe’s jersey, letter sweater, gloves and other items back to where they belong.

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Deerskin paintings

April 4, 2008

Every so often I am blessed by an email that comes out of the blue from a person I don’t know or have ever heard of before that brightens my day (or several days) considerably. One such message came from Barr Shriver. Mr. Shriver’s grandparents, Barr and Marie Cox “Nana” Crawford, lived in the same apartment building in Pittsburgh as the Dietzes for several years in the early 1950s. Barr’s grandparents and the Dietzes became good friends during this period.

Barr Crawford worked in the truck parts department at Hoover Dam during its construction and made friends with many Indians. When he worked as a salesman with International Harvester (IH) during the Great Depression, the Indians didn’t have enough money to pay for the repair parts they needed. So, Mr. Crawford allowed them to trade beautiful blankets and art for the parts needed to keep their trucks running.

Having grown up in Montana, the Crawfords appreciated Indian art and understood the hardships Indians had undergone. Seeing Lone Star’s artwork, they struck a deal with him. Their son-in-law, Barr Shriver’s father, was a hunter and supplied two deer hides that he had had tanned and Lone Star had them mounted as if they were canvases and trimmed to about 14 by 16 inches. On one he painted a bust of an Indian woman and on the other a self-portrait in his war shirt and headdress. He signed the colorful paintings with the distinctive signature he used on his artwork at Carlisle.

After the Crawfords died, the paintings passed to Barr Shriver’s mother, their daughter. One of the things I mourn is that much of Lone Star’s art has been lost over the years. That, fortunately, is not the case this time. The Shrivers are proud to have and appreciate what are two-of-a-kind paintings and family heirlooms.

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Lone Star Dietz selected for Hall of Fame

April 1, 2008

At long last an oversight or, as many view it, a snubbing is being corrected. Lone Star Dietz should have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame decades ago but hasn’t been. Some view this as just another example of Indians being abused by white men. Dietz has been inducted into a number of halls of fame including the prestigious Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame back in the 1970s. His role in establishing the New Year’s Day football tradition, most notably the Rose Bowl, is reason enough to induct him. But that’s not all. His won-loss record qualifies him for induction and that’s saying something. Lone Star Dietz did not nestle into a successful program and ride that horse for decades; he undertook a number of reconstruction efforts and turned programs around. On the few occasions he couldn’t turn a perpetual loser into a winner, he got the student body excited.

So, why hasn’t he been inducted? Until a few years ago the Hall had his record wrong and didn’t consider him qualified. Now that the record has been corrected he is eligible and his name has been on the ballot. A couple of years ago he came close but while the ballots were being counted, the Honors Committee (now that’s a dubious name) decided they wanted to induct Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden. There was one hitch: Paterno and Bowden’s names weren’t on the ballot because, as active coaches, they weren’t eligible. That problem was easily dealt with. All they had to do was to change the rules in midstream. Presto! Paterno and Bowden were eligible and the men whose names were actually on the ballot were forgotten. Sorry, Lone Star.

But this year he’s getting a fair shake and is belatedly being inducted. Perhaps this will lift the Lone Star Curse from Washington State.

April Fool!

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Minority Coaches

March 28, 2008

Yesterday I came across a December 8, 2007 article in The News Tribune out of Tacoma, Washington. In it reporter Todd Miles wrote, “Not since 1917 have the Washington State Cougars had a minority head coach in football.” Putting aside the fact that Washington State’s teams weren’t called the Cougars in 1917, the statement is still incorrect. Yes, Lone Star Dietz coached the 1918 Mare Island Marine team that was featured in WSC’s yearbook because ten players were from WSC. And, although Dietz considered it Washington State’s second Rose Bowl team, it didn’t wear crimson and gray. The major error is that not one but two minority coaches were overlooked. This is why we study history.

When Dietz was unceremoniously dumped in early 1919, WSC wanted another coach who was steeped in the Warner system because Dietz had been wildly successful with it. So, the administration looked for someone with experience, not just with the single and double-wing formations but with the whole system. Recall that Ace Clark thought that the way Lone Star conditioned his players and reduced the amount of scrimmaging left them in better shape for the games. Albert Exendine was a logical choice but he was under contract at Georgetown. Eventually Gus Welch was tracked down on a former battlefield in France and recruited for the job.

Gus Welch was Chippewa from Wisconsin and Al Exendine was Delaware and Cherokee from Oklahoma, but they have a lot of similarities. Both attended Carlisle Indian School and starred on its teams, Exendine at end and Welch at quarterback (blocking back in Warner’s single-wing). Both got their law degrees from Dickinson School of Law (now part of Penn State) across town from the Indian school. Both had long careers of coaching football in the fall and practicing law the rest of the year. Both were inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as players. And both coached Washington State. Welch led the team from 1919 through 1922 and Exendine took over in 1923, lasting through the 1925 season. Each has a chapter devoted to him in Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs.

So, Washington State has a history of hiring minority head football coaches, just not lately.

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The Great Crockery Riot

March 24, 2008

While researching Carlisle Indian School students who enrolled at Dickinson College, I stumbled across a small item that was put on the wire and printed across the country in late May of 1912:

CARLISLE, Pa. –Dickinson College students stoned the house of the dean because they thought the annual per capita tax of $1.95 for “breakage” was too high.

Being easily distracted, this curious item aroused my interest and I did a little research. It seems that in those days crockery breakage was significant. It is not known if students were merely clumsy or had hurled cups, saucers, plates or soup bowls at one another on purpose. Regardless, the total cost of replacing the smashed crockery was substantial. So, near the end of the school year, the total amount of this breakage was computed and divided by the number of male students enrolled at the college. Each young man’s share generally amounted to about $2. Why 1912’s assessment triggered such a response is not known. I don’t think this was an early blow for equal rights for women, so we need to look into other possibilities. Because the assessed amount was lower than it had been in some previous years, the cost of the assessment probably wasn’t the match that set off this tinderbox. A Dickinson professor asked if this happened during President Reed’s time. A quick reference to the records showed that Dr. Reed had retired and his successor, Dr. Eugene Allen Noble, was ensconced in the President’s house but had not been inaugurated. That event was scheduled just days after the stoning. Perhaps the students were misunderstood and were merely welcoming Dr. Noble to the campus. Or, they may have been hazing him as part of the inauguration festivities.

We will not likely ever know what was the cause. However, it is known that Dickinsonians were sensitive to the condition of their crockery. Some years earlier, a German professor at Dickinson College’s preparatory school became so agitated after being served his dinner on cracked crockery that it took three large boys to restrain him in his anger.

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Celebrity visitors

March 21, 2008

Carlisle had two celebrity visitors yesterday. Robert W. Wheeler and his wife, Florence Ridlon, dropped in at Wardecker’s Mens Wear to buy Bob a suit. Some might think it odd for a person who lives in Sandy Shores, Texas to drive to Carlisle on such an errand. However, it was a return trip for Bob, although close to 40 years in the making. What began as a master’s degree thesis in the late 1960s became a seven-year odyssey to research the life of America’s greatest athlete, Jim Thorpe. Bob’s research was not supported by a foundation grant and, as a graduate student at Syracuse University, he had few personal financial resources and found it necessary to travel across the country by hitchhiking. After he arrived at “The Capital,” as the haberdashery was known when Thorpe patronized it, “Muck” Wardecker dispatched his son, Freddie, the current owner, to chauffeur Bob around the area to interview Thorpe’s old friends. This time Bob and Florence drove themselves to Carlisle.

Much has happened in the intervening decades. For starters, Bob’s master’s thesis became the book, Jim Thorpe: world’s greatest athlete. However, getting college credit for writing the book was not automatic. That is a story best left to Bob to tell. After publication, the book got rave reviews. Dick Schaap compared Wheeler to James Boswell, the author of what has been considered the best biography ever written for any person. Bob got married but his interest in Thorpe did not wane. In fact, his bride, Florence Ridlon, became involved with the effort. One day in a musty archive, Florence found something that would have a major impact on the sports world.

She found the rules for the 1912 Olympics. In those rules she saw that challenges had to be filed within 30 days of the Olympics. The challenge that caused Thorpe to be stripped of his medals was filed almost six months after the Olympics and should not have been allowed. Getting Thorpe’s medals restored was not a simple matter and that story is best left for Bob and Florence to tell, also. Suffice to say that we will always be indebted to them for what they accomplished – and it wasn’t easy.

After having a son in 1989, Bob decided to quit his glamorous job with ABC Sports and work with Florence in their public relations business based out of Texas so that he could be involved in the rearing of his child. Their son is now a tennis star at MIT and they are on the road to watch him play some matches in the northeast.

Bob is making an audiobook with Frank Gifford narrating. Interviews with people such as President Eisenhower will be included as what I would call making of material. I can’t wait for that to come out.

Also visiting with Bob and Florence was Carlisle’s own Dick Darr, who played at Syracuse alongside Florence’s brother, Jim Ridlon. Perhaps we can get an interview with Dick some day to discuss his competition for the tailback position with an upstart named Jim Brown.

It is hoped that Bob and Florence will honor Carlisle with a talk sometime in the future now that they have reason to pass this way again.

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Booktalk surprises

March 18, 2008

It was almost two years ago that I gave my first booktalk on Keep A-goin’: the life of Lone Star Dietz. Things went smoothly until the question and answer session when a gentleman informed me that a photo in my book had an incorrect caption. The caption below a photo on page 290 of two men in business suits flanking a smaller young man in his Albright College  football uniform read, “Jim Thorpe shows Leo Disend some tricks as Lone Star looks on.” There can’t be anything wrong with that, I thought, because it came straight from an Albright College yearbook. Also, I knew what Jim Thorpe and Lone Star Dietz looked like, so it couldn’t be wrong. Or so I thought.

The gentleman then informed me that the player in the photo was not Leo Disend. He didn’t know who it was but he was sure it wasn’t Moose, as Leo was better known as. The man identified himself as Sid Disend, Leo’s bother. Well, I couldn’t argue with him because he surely knew what his brother looked like. He also said that the layer in the photo was not wearing Leo’s number. I then had to find out who the mysterious number 31 in the photo was.

The next day I emailed Francine Scoboria, Manager of Advancement Communications at Albright College, to inform her of this long-standing error. She researched the issue and found that the mystery man was John Killiany, class of 1946, varsity quarterback.

The lesson in this was that errors made decades earlier, this time over 60 years before, often are assumed to be correct years later. So, when you’re researching the past, don’t be surprised when you encounter conflicting information. Either or both source may be wrong.

Now I’m off to research the great Dickinson College crockery riot of 1912.

April 8, 2008

It is with sadness I report seeing the following in today’s Harrisburg Patriot-News:

Sidney DisendSid Disend, 86, of Harrisburg, died Sunday April 6, 2008 at the Carolyn Croxton Slane Hospice Residence on Linglestown Road.
Born in Roselle, NJ, he was the son of Samuel and Sarah Disend. Sid graduated from Albright College in Reading, PA with a degree in Education then served his country in World War II at the Battle of the Bulge in the U.S. Army as a sergeant in the 95th Division, Field Artillery.
He was the owner/operator of Ess & Dee Venetian Blind Company then retired as Regional Sales Manager for the R.W. Norman Company of Salisbury, NC, responsible for the entire Northeast territory.
He was a member of Temple Ohev Sholom, a member of the Brotherhood, and Principal of the Religious School. He was the Past President of the Harrisburg Jaycees, and the recipient of their first Honorary Life Membership. He was the Founder and Past President of the Wilson Park Civic Association, Founder and Past President of the Latshmere Crime Watch, a charter member of the Susquehanna Rovers Volksport Association, and a founding member of the Capital Area Greenbelt Association.
Sid was also an active volunteer at the Harrisburg State Hospital, the Jewish Home of Greater Harrisburg, a Dispatcher for the Susquehanna Township’s Indian Wheels, an Instructor with the Literacy Council, and, with his wife Shirley, was responsible for the development of the “Five Senses Gardens, on the Greenbelt.
Sid is survived by his wife of 64 years, Shirley, son Jeff and his wife Kay of Atlanta, son Randy of Harrisburg, and several nieces and nephews.
A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. in the Bookstaber Chapel of Mount Moriah Cemetery. An additional memorial service will be held in the Manor at Oakridge, 4500 Oakhurst Blvd., Harrisburg, PA on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.
Arrangements by Fackler-Wiedeman Funeral Home, Harrisburg. There will be no viewing or visitation.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Five Senses Gardens, c/o Capital Area Greenbelt Association, P.O. Box 15404, Harrisburg, PA 17105 or Hospice of Central Pennsylvania, P.O. Box 206, Enola, PA 17025.
Sid has donated his body to science through the Humanity Gifts Registry at the Hershey Medical Center. wiedemanfuneralhome.com

 

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Helen Keller letter

March 13, 2008

The Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City has a treasure trove of interesting material. Ann and I were there researching Lone Star Dietz’s time at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. If the Oklahoma Historical Society doesn’t seem to be a logical location for such research, consider that it holds Chilocco Indian School archives and that Chilocco’s Superintendent McGowan was in charge of the model government Indian school exhibit at the World’s Fair. (However, it wasn’t a world’s fair, it was the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition held a year late. The scale and scope of the exhibits probably caused attendees to give it that name.) Superintendent McGowan also moved Chilocco’s printing operation to St. Louis where students printed daily editions of Indian School Journal during the fair.

Lone Star Dietz worked in the model government Indian school doing artwork, most notably a mosaic of an Indian hunter made from grains grown at Chilocco. Other information about Dietz’s activities at the fair was found in various issues of Indian School Journal and in files held by the archives.

It was in one of those files that Ann found a folded piece of paper that appeared as if it might be a letter. When she unfolded it, it was indeed a letter typed on a typewriter. At the bottom of the letter was a hand-printed signature in block letters. The signature was Helen Keller’s. The text of the letter Miss Keller was an apology that she had to turn down the invitation to visit the Indian school exhibit because of a prior commitment. An Indian School Journal article discussed a visit to the exhibit by a group of blind children, one of whom Lone Star allowed to feel his face so that the child could “see” what an Indian looked like.

Finding something in an archive file that the archives do not know they possess is not as rare an occurrence as one might think. Archives hold many thousands if not millions of documents and do not have the manpower available to read everything they have. The person who originally created the file probably knew the letter was in it but did not view it as significant enough to note elsewhere. I found a photo of Lone Star Dietz in a different archive in a folder labeled unknown student. Lone Star Dietz was in pencil on the back of the photo. An earlier patron had likely misfiled the photo.

Next time we’ll discuss surprises in question and answer sessions at booktalks.

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