Indiana Thanksgiving football game gave legendary Jim Thorpe chance for revenge

Dawn Mitchell | IndyStar

The tradition of football on Thanksgiving Day is nearly as old as the game itself: It started approximately six years after Abraham Lincoln declared the first national Thanksgiving holiday in 1863.

One of Indiana's most historic Thanksgiving matchups was in 1915, when League Ball Park on the Wabash River levee in Lafayette was transformed into a gridiron. An estimated 2,800 people attended.

They weren't there just to see the undefeated Pine Village Team. They were there to get a glimpse of “The World’s Greatest Athlete,” Jim Thorpe.

The cradle of professional football in Indiana

The Pine Village Villagers football team in Warren County, some 20 miles west of Lafayette, was founded about 1902. It was initially made up of local boys who had played for the high school team, farmers and businessmen. Throughout the seasons most of their opponents were teams made up of former college team standouts.

Pine Village High School had a football team, but the lack of any safety equipment, mounting injuries and even death forced the end of the school team in 1912.

The village team flourished under manager Claire Rhode, who started to field former standouts at Notre Dame, Indiana, Purdue, Wabash and DePauw about 1913. As the team flourished, so did the fan base. Inhabitants of nearby towns such as Boswell, Montmorenci, Attica, Williamsport and Remington traveled to the football field near Pine Creek and lined their Model Ts and roadsters along the sidelines to root for the Villagers.

On Thanksgiving Day in 1914, the Mickey Athletic team from Indianapolis took a walloping from the Villagers. As the Attica Ledger so amusingly described the following day, “The capital city aggregation came out pretending to be the champion team of Marion County but they were clearly out-classed by the Villagers. The score was so big that there is some dispute as to whether the final score was 105 or 111 but certain it was that the visitors’ failed to score at all.”

'The greatest athlete in the world'

Thorpe, of Sac and Fox and Potawatomi descent, was a superhuman athlete who excelled at every sport he tried. If you thought Bo Jackson was an impressive multi-sport athlete, consider Thorpe's athletic resume.

As an All-American half-back at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, Thorpe beat future president Dwight Eisenhower’s powerhouse Army team in 1912. Eisenhower injured his knee while trying to tackle Thorpe, and he later recalled Thorpe's athleticism in a 1961 speech, "Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw."

Thorpe barnstormed as a professional basketball player with an American Indian team, spent seven years playing Major League Baseball being moved around to the New York Giants, Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Braves and was an All-Pro in the National Football League during his 13-year football career with the Cleveland Indians, Rock Island Independents, New York Giants and Chicago Cardinals.

But track and field was Thorpe’s real love. It was also the sport where he saw the most rewards, taking gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. In congratulating Thorpe, King Gustav V of Sweden told him, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world,” to which Thorpe replied, “Thanks, King."

Those medals were stripped after it was revealed he had violated amateur eligibility rules.

Thorpe and retribution

Jim Thorpe had been hired as an assistant football coach at Indiana University, though he had to finish out the baseball season with the New York Giants before joining the Hoosiers in October 1915. The following month, Thorpe’s Hoosiers lost to Purdue 7-0. Two days after the defeat, Thorpe announced he would play for the Villagers and would bring several IU players who had just played their last college game against Purdue.

Pine Village really didn’t need Thorpe's assistance, as they proved they were well-equipped to win on their own abilities. But Rhode saw Thorpe's potential to draw a crowd.

It seems Thorpe wanted retribution for IU's loss, and what better way to take out his anger than on the All-Stars, who were fielding some Purdue players. “It is seldom that I am beaten,” Thorpe said, “and when I am beaten I am always looking for a chance to even the score. I think that I will play about the best game I have played in many years against those Purdue players.”

While his teammates were paid $40 a game, Thorpe was paid a hefty sum of $250. The Purdue All-Stars had offered Thorpe $200.

The following day, The Indianapolis Star reported Thorpe was essentially a one-man show. He carried, passed, had an 80-yard punt and scored two of the Villagers' touchdowns. Pine Village soundly defeated the All-Stars, 29-0, winning its 108th straight victory and clinching the Western Amateur Football Championship.

Thorpe got his revenge.

Thorpe offered his services to the Pine Village team the following season but asked to be paid $100 per game. Claire Rhode opted to stick with his core team that managed to serve up victory after victory before Thorpe arrived.

When World War I broke out, pro teams lost many of their players to the military. Rhode managed to cobble together a team after the war to play a few games, but the team eventually faded into the history books as one of the best pre-NFL teams in the country.

Jim Thorpe fell on hard times during the Great Depression and took several odd jobs to support his family; he was a chronic alcoholic in later life. Thorpe suffered a fatal heart attack in 1953 at the age of 65.

Seventeen of those who had played with various Pine Village teams were inducted into the National Football Hall of Fame. Jim Thorpe was posthumously inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1963.

Follow IndyStar Visuals Manager and RetroIndy writer Dawn Mitchell on Twitter: @dawn_mitchell61.