Fighting Spirit: On the Field with Jim Thorpe
By J. Gunderson
I’d heard it all before. I was smart, but why couldn’t I play football too? My dad wants me to be a doctor. It’s his dream, but it’s definitely not mine. Just the sight of the Kansas sky made my feet twitch. I loved running under a blue sky with a football tucked under my arm.
I touched the hawk feather that I wore under my shirt. The feather had been my brother’s and it reminded me of the promise I’d made to him. Standing next to Coach Bergstrom that day, I wanted to run far away. I’d rather run away than tell Coach my dream. But I had to. I’d promised.
I went up to Coach and said, “Coach, my dream is to become the greatest athlete in the world. Just like Jim Thorpe!”
“Ha!” replied Coach. “You want to be like Jim Thorpe? You two have nothing in common.”
I wanted to be like Jim Thorpe. You see, my brother and I were his biggest fans! He’s only the best athlete in the world, of course. And he started out playing football here and after a winning season he went on to college where he continued to win.
But that’s not all. He also traveled to the 1912 Summer Olympics. While at the Games he won gold medals in the pentathlon and the decathlon. The pentathlon includes the running broad jump, the 200-meter dash, the javelin throw, the discus toss, and the 1500-meter run. Thorpe blasted the competition in all five. The decathlon is the pentathlon plus the 100-meter dash, the pole vault, the high jump, the 110-meter hurdles, 400-meter run, and the shot put. Whew! That’s a lot to do for one medal, but Jim Thorpe did it. He aced both the pentathlon and the decathlon. No one had ever done that in the Olympics.
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Adapted from Fighting Spirit: On the Field with Jim Thorpe, by J. Gunderson, ©️ by Capstone. Reprinted with permission.
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Questions
How do the narrator’s feelings about Jim Thorpe compare to Coach Bergstrom’s?
The narrator admires Jim Thorpe, but Coach Bergstrom thinks he is overrated.
The narrator admires Jim Thorpe, but Coach Bergstrom thinks the narrator is nothing like him.
The narrator does not share their opinions about Jim Thorpe, but Coach Bergstrom admires him.
They both admire Jim Thorpe.