Talk:Jim Thorpe

I'm not in love with this section or title. I would probably integrate the material to the appropriate sections. Regardless, I remember seeing that Thorpe had to bunk with a Jewish Oylmpian, supposedly in "steerage", on the way to Sweden. If a good souce can be found it would be interesting to include. His role as coach, speaker, celebrity, actor, and NFL promoter seems to be getting downplayed in our entry which strikes me as continuation of the discrimination he faced. Certainly wasn't a dumb jock. Sad. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:33, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

I don't know if this'd be a good source, but it's a start. It contains info about the Jewish oilman and other things that aren't mentioned in the article. Graham87 16:47, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

The article says "Wheeler interviewed Abel Kiviat, Thorpe’s roommate on the ship to reach Sweden. Kiviat was Jewish and revealed that he and Thorpe weren’t given keys to rooms, like the rest of the competitors. They were expected to sleep in steerage below. Wheeler also found a picture of Thorpe training on the ship and heard the stories of how he led workouts. The interviews corrected the oft-repeated “no training” stories and the lie that Thorpe would drink and then compete." Saying Fellow Olympian Abel Kiviat, a Jew, said they had to stay separate from the team in "steerage" or something similar works for me. I take anecdotes from decades prior with a grain of salt but there must have been a sense of alienation and some truth to theirbhaving to bunk apart. FloridaArmy (talk) 17:18, 14 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

The "External links" should be looked at for trimming. The "Career statistics and player information" from NFL.com, Pro-Football-Reference, Baseball-Reference, or Baseball-Reference (Minors), is just plain link farming. How many sites do we need to advertise to list the "Career statistics"? Just because a template is created doesn't mean we need to "link to it" and inundate Wikipedia just for the fun of it. Otr500 (talk) 12:21, 4 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

The NFL.com and Sports Reference links are pretty standard across the football and baseball projects, and I'm reluctant to remove them as the chances of them being re-added are high and the projects are likely to have reached a consensus that supports including the links in the past. I did find a few links that struck me as excessive upon a careful look, and removing them has brought the number of ELs down to four, which strikes me as reasonable. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:35, 5 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Currently, the article on sneakers mentions Thorpe in the same breath as Chuck Taylor as the Michael Jordans of their era. Upon cursory CTRL+Fing, there seems to be absolutely nothing in this article on shoes, footwear, sponsorships, &c. Should this be removed from over there? or is something important still missing here? or is it already here and just phrased a little too obliquely?

Amid all the racism,

...The U.S. market for sneakers grew steadily as young boys lined up to buy sneakers endorsed by football player Jim Thorpe...

is a lovely image. Be unfortunate if it were entirely made up. — LlywelynII 12:21, 1 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

@LlywelynII: Unfortunately I suspect it was either made up or perhaps a different person was intended. I don't know much about the subject of this article beyond what's on his page and I wouldn't be surprised if some major things are missing from here. It's very difficult to text-search for Jim Thorpe-endorsed footware because of the stolen shoes incident but I couldn't find any evidence for it on a quick check. The offending text was added to the sneaker article in this edit in 2015, which was derived from this June 2009 edit to Athletic shoe, which in turn came from this February 2009 edit to the page now at "Sneaker collecting". The entire contribution history of the user who added that text is summed up in this series of edits. The closest thing to a smoking gun I can find is that in a Google Books search of the most recent biography of Thorpe in the further reading section, there are no results whatsoever for "sneakers" and all the results for "shoes" are irrelevant. I'm confident enough that it's mistaken that I'll remove Thorpe from the sneakers page myself. Graham87 16:36, 1 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I've removed mention of him from the Wikipedia articles about sneakers in Spanish and Finnish and asked for help in the Vietnamese Wikipedia about removing his name from there. I know basic Spanish grammar through Italian and the Finnish translation simplified the text enough so that I could do the removal myself, but neither of those things are true for the Vietnamese page. Graham87 17:49, 1 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

List of teams Thorpe played and coached for is missing the Portsmouth Shoesteels, with which he was a player-coach. Is this for any particular reason? Trevbk (talk) 19:28, 7 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 January 2024 and 26 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sallino2 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Sallino2 (talk) 20:10, 30 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

In the box on the right, under "Career history," it's stated that Thorpe played for the Cleveland Indians. This is obviously incorrect. By simply mousing over the link, you can see that it's the Cleveland Tigers he played for. The mistake appears under both "As a player" and "As a coach." 207.38.136.166 (talk) 11:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Nope, they were called the Indians then; see their article. Graham87 (talk) 14:28, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Graham is correct; when Thorpe played for them in 1921, they were known as the Indians, apparently because Thorpe and a couple other Native Americans joined the team if the article is accurate. Giants2008 (Talk) 17:19, 15 August 2024 (UTC)Reply