The Real All Americans

Sally Jenkins has produced a very informative read and I found the football part of the story quite enjoyable. The story begins with Pop Warner giving a rare pep talk before the historic 1912 Carlisle / Army football match. But before the reader enters the stadium with Jim Thorpe and the rest of the Carlisle team the author takes us back in time to the 1860s. That is because this book is about much more than that well known game. As the subtitle says, this story is about the team, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School football team. Not just one team. It traces the short 39 year history of the Indian School and its love affair with the game of American football.Intercollegiate football began at Carlisle in 1893 and ended in 1917. Pop Warner was the coach from 1899 through 1903 and again from 1907 through 1914. The author does a great job of covering Warner’s unparalleled contribution to the development of football from the brutal slugfest of its origins to the introduction of the passing game. She covers the various pieces of practice equipment invented by Pop and his wild idea for the hidden ball play. But, for me, the best part was the story of the introduction of the forward pass to Carlisle in 1907 and the way the Native American players excelled at incorporating it into the game.But Jenkins’ book is about much more than football at Carlisle. It traces the story of Carlisle’s founder Richard Henry Pratt and introduces the reader to the significant Native American leaders who were instrumental to the success of the Indian school. I think she does a good job of highlighting the positive as well as the considerable negative effects that all the Indian schools had on the Native American’s who were forced to attend, including Carlisle. She also does not shy away from the questionable behavior and actions of Pop Warner as well. Warner knew Thorpe played baseball for pay before Warner began to encourage him to try-out for the Olympics.I found this to be a very exciting and captivating story that was, in the end, so much more than just a story about Native Americans playing football.

"The Real All Americans," the story of the Carlisle Indians football team, is more history than sports. Sports fans might be disappointed since the first 125 pages are mainly history, focusing on the Indian chief "American Horse" and a young soldier Richard Pratt, who went on to found the Carlisle School for Indians.Pratt's experiment with the Indians began at Fort Marion with Sarah Ann Mather helping to teach and educate the Indians. Pratt's goal was "total erasure of the old tribal life and the abolishment of the corrupt reservation system." Many of the chiefs were upset by the changes forced upon the Indians at Fort Marion.Carlisle, "a social experiment unlike other schools," fielded its first football team in 1894. Its players were usually outsized, physically abused by opponents, and discriminated against by officials. They played, however, with lots of heart.The book details the evolution of college football, particularly among the Ivy League teams, the center of power. The Carlisle Indians gained respect of their opponents, while helping to revolutionize the sport.The arrival of Jim Thorpe and his rise to fame is chronicled. From 1911 through 1913, Carlisle posted a 38-3 record.After Carlisle beat Army, 27-6, in 1912, the New York Times wrote that "Carlisle played the most perfect brand of football ever seen in America." Carlisle's football program, however, ended after the 1917 season.In the epilogue, author Sally Jenkins gives a thumbnail sketch as to what happened to some of the major figures associated with the Carlisle School for Indians after its football program ended.Jenkins does a wonderful job telling the story of this legendary school and its football program. The book is thoroughly researched, footnoted and easy to read. Highly recommended for anyone interested in sports history.

This is an outstanding book about the Carlisle football team of the early 1900's, principally because it describes the history of Richard Henry Pratt and his "experiment" with prisoners at Fort Marion, Florida, that led up to his founding and building of the Carlisle Indian School in 1879. While the author (Jenkins) accepted the faulty narrative that Pratt's design for Carlisle was to destroy Indian languages, cultures and children, she was generally accurate in describing the educational development of Carlisle under Pratt's leadership and the deterioration of education after Pratt was removed in 1904. Jenkins acknowledged the crucial role of Albert Exendine, a Delaware Indian student at Carlisle who mentored Jim Thorpe and was instrumental in the success of the Carlisle football team. Exendine was born in Indian Territory (now Bartlesville, Oklahoma) and preceded Thorpe at Carlisle four years earlier. He was the first Indian to complete a law degree at Dickinson College (in Carlisle) and became a successful football coach and Indian activist who believed that the removal of Pratt and the closing of Carlisle (1918) "set Indian education back 100 years." (pg. 306). Scholars of the history of Indian education have badly missed Pratt's legacy at Carlisle, and Jenkins' book gives a reasonably balanced story for readers to decide.

The big game referenced on the cover is only detailed in the last chapter of the book. The book details the history of the people tied to the Carlisle Indian School and its unusually good football team. It’s also a history of the early days of football and innovations the players and coaches at Carlisle brought to the game. We’ll worth a read!

What a wonderful story of a marvelous accomplishment. Crazy Horse might have been impressed and there is no greater accolade than that..