About this item
In the autumn of 1912, the football team from Carlisle Indian Industrial School took the field at the U.S. Military Academy, home to the bigger, stronger, and better-equipped West Points Cadets. Sportswriters billed the game as a sort of rematch, pitting against each other the descendants of U.S. soldiers and American Indians who fought on the battlefield only 20 years earlier. But for lightning-fast Jim Thorpe and the other Carlisle players, that day's game was about skill, strategy, and determination. Known for unusual formations and innovative plays, the Carlisle squad was out to prove just one thing -- that it was the best football team in all the land.
About the Author
Art Coulson (Cherokee) was born in Honolulu and spent his childhood years traveling the world as the son of a sailor. For 23 years, he worked as a daily journalist in cities across the United States and wrote an award-winning column about contemporary American Indian issues. After his journalism career, Art served as executive director of the Wilma Mankiller Foundation in Tahlequah, OK. A resident of the Twin Cities, Art frequently returns to the Cherokee Nation to visit with family, to play traditional stickball and to improve his knowledge of the Cherokee language.
