SeanVol
09-28-2007, 01:01 PM
The two teams stood on opposite sidelines of Cullum Field at West Point, studying each other closely as whites and Indians once did from opposite sides of frontier battlefields. Kickoff between the Carlisle Indian School and Army was minutes away. The cold November air at West Point was thick with tension. This was it, the game James Francis Thorpe, Dwight David Eisenhower, and Glenn Scobey Warner had been waiting to play all their lives.
For Thorpe and the other Indian players, this was their chance to prove once and for all that they could play the game of football better than the white man -- and better than the sons of the military men who shared the same blood as the soldiers who pulled the triggers at Wounded Knee. This was the Indian's chance to avenge, in some small way, that massacre of twenty-two years ago. A victory would also amount to further justification of the Carlisle Indian School: a good showing could prove that Indians were every bit as competent and powerful as their white contemporaries.
For Eisenhower, this was his chance to create his West Point legacy. Football was the single most important thing in Ike's life, and his reputation as a player who was as relentless as the wind had grown each week of the 1912 season. If he could stop Thorpe -- or, better yet, if he could knock Thorpe out of the game with a blockbuster hit -- Ike didn't believe there was any way his team would lose. Ike always loved challenges, and no challenge in his sporting life was greater than taking on an Olympic legend and the other Indians who were as swift as antelopes. Before kickoff, a fever arose in him.
For Warner, this was the chance to prove that his new style of football was superior to the power game that Army played. Warner's players had wowed crowds all over the country with their speed and agility, with their deception and their cunning, and in this game Warner was going to use all his tricks to confuse the bigger Cadet players. And Warner, who understood what made Indian athletes tick better than any white man in America, knew exactly how to fire up his boys before the game. He reminded them that it was the fathers and grandfathers of these Army players who had killed their fathers and grandfathers in the Indian Wars. They were the ones who murdered innocent women and children at Wounded Knee. They were the ones who spilled Indian blood all over the plains.
Now, Warner told his boys, it was the Indians' time to fight back. It was time to make their ancestors proud. It was time to beat the living daylights out of Army.
SI.com - Writers - The Bonus: The story behind the 1912 Carlisle vs. Army battle - Friday September 28, 2007 1:26PM (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/the_bonus/09/27/carllisle/index.html)
For Thorpe and the other Indian players, this was their chance to prove once and for all that they could play the game of football better than the white man -- and better than the sons of the military men who shared the same blood as the soldiers who pulled the triggers at Wounded Knee. This was the Indian's chance to avenge, in some small way, that massacre of twenty-two years ago. A victory would also amount to further justification of the Carlisle Indian School: a good showing could prove that Indians were every bit as competent and powerful as their white contemporaries.
For Eisenhower, this was his chance to create his West Point legacy. Football was the single most important thing in Ike's life, and his reputation as a player who was as relentless as the wind had grown each week of the 1912 season. If he could stop Thorpe -- or, better yet, if he could knock Thorpe out of the game with a blockbuster hit -- Ike didn't believe there was any way his team would lose. Ike always loved challenges, and no challenge in his sporting life was greater than taking on an Olympic legend and the other Indians who were as swift as antelopes. Before kickoff, a fever arose in him.
For Warner, this was the chance to prove that his new style of football was superior to the power game that Army played. Warner's players had wowed crowds all over the country with their speed and agility, with their deception and their cunning, and in this game Warner was going to use all his tricks to confuse the bigger Cadet players. And Warner, who understood what made Indian athletes tick better than any white man in America, knew exactly how to fire up his boys before the game. He reminded them that it was the fathers and grandfathers of these Army players who had killed their fathers and grandfathers in the Indian Wars. They were the ones who murdered innocent women and children at Wounded Knee. They were the ones who spilled Indian blood all over the plains.
Now, Warner told his boys, it was the Indians' time to fight back. It was time to make their ancestors proud. It was time to beat the living daylights out of Army.
SI.com - Writers - The Bonus: The story behind the 1912 Carlisle vs. Army battle - Friday September 28, 2007 1:26PM (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/the_bonus/09/27/carllisle/index.html)