Thoughts on Ike & Jim Thorpe

While running on the Haskell campus, I remembered it was Dwight D. Eisenhower Day.

Sometimes Mother Nature forces us to change our plans like the thunder and lightning yesterday, ending any thought of doing my 20 mile run on Saturday. It would have been the same old loop out to Clinton State Park and back. Later that evening, I got Steve Riley's description of the 2008 Lawrence Half Marathon route. So, today's plan was to run from my house, do the Thanksgiving Day 5K route (a new one, too), then the half marathon, then home.

On the Haskell campus about 12 miles on the run, your mind can wander and you think of the many great athletes who've attended the school (Institute, Junior College, University).

Finished the run and started to record the workout. What's the date? Oct 14. Let's see, I always got confused about Oct 12 and Oct 14 - two special dates I learned in grade school. My generation was taught that "Columbus sailed the ocean blue; in 14 hundred and 92." OK, that was Oct 12. Growing up in Kansas in the 50s, you also learn (but didn't always remember) that Dwight Eisenhower's birthday was Oct 14.

OK, Oct 12 is no longer Columbus Day; Native Americans invite debate over the merits of the legal holiday in his name.

Now, Oct 14: Eisenhower and Thorpe? Jim Thorpe was a student at Haskell Institute before he went on to football fame at Carlisle. Carlisle beat a West Point team which included Dwight Eisenhower who got hurt trying to tackle Jim Thorpe. In 1961 President Eisenhower said, "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."

Both men did OK in life after that football game. To learn more about the Carlisle team and this game, read Sally Jenkins' The Real All Americans.

Gene Wee

There are other stories along the Lawrence Half Marathon route you might want to share. Got one on John Burroughs, Clarina Nichols, Langston Hughes, Jenna Coker or James Naismith or the national cross country champs from Haskell?

(photos from the National Archives and Records Administration; Oct 14, 2007)