Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle (Hardcover)

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*Starred Review* "Remember that it was the fathers and grandfathers of these Army players who fought your fathers and grandfathers in the Indian Wars. Remember Wounded Knee." Now that is a pregame pep talk. It was delivered by legendary coach Pop Warner to the Carlisle Indian School football team minutes before the squad took the field against Army in 1912. Carlisle was led by Jim Thorpe, still basking in his gold-medal performance in the 1912 Olympics; Army's emerging star was a gritty, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust halfback named Dwight Eisenhower. Sports Illustrated writer Anderson reprises the landmark game in gripping, play-by-play fashion, but it is really the backstory that gives this thoroughly engaging book its bite: how Warner, college football's first superstar coach, found himself at an unheralded Indian school, and how he came to nurture Thorpe into becoming the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century; how Thorpe struggled with family tragedy and the identity-crushing regimen common to the Indian schools of the era; and how a tough, street-fighting kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Abilene, Texas, landed on the gridiron at West Point, where his determination to knock Thorpe out of the game with a bone-crushing hit almost derailed the future president's military career. Anderson allows himself to get inside the heads of his characters, but as in the best sports-centered narrative nonfiction (Hillebrand's Seabiscuit and Frost's Greatest Game Ever Played, for example), the technique is based on solid research. A great sports story, told with propulsive narrative drive and offering a fascinating look at multiple layers of American popular culture. Ott, Bill

Product Description

A stunning work of narrative nonfiction, Carlisle vs. Army recounts the fateful 1912 gridiron clash that pitted one of America’s finest athletes, Jim Thorpe, against the man who would become one of the nation’s greatest heroes, Dwight D. Eisenhower. But beyond telling the tale of this momentous event, Lars Anderson also reveals the broader social and historical context of the match, lending it his unique perspectives on sports and culture at the dawn of the twentieth century.

This story begins with the infamous massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee, in 1890, then moves to rural Pennsylvania and the Carlisle Indian School, an institution designed to “elevate” Indians by uprooting their youths and immersing them in the white man’s ways. Foremost among those ways was the burgeoning sport of football. In 1903 came the man who would mold the Carlisle Indians into a juggernaut: Glenn “Pop” Warner, the son of a former Union Army captain. Guided by Warner, a tireless innovator and skilled manager, the Carlisle eleven barnstormed the country, using superior team speed, disciplined play, and tactical mastery to humiliate such traditional powerhouses as Harvard, Yale, Michigan, and Wisconsin–and to, along the way, lay waste American prejudices against Indians. When a troubled young Sac and Fox Indian from Oklahoma named Jim Thorpe arrived at Carlisle, Warner sensed that he was in the presence of greatness. While still in his teens, Thorpe dazzled his opponents and gained fans across the nation. In 1912 the coach and the Carlisle team could feel the national championship within their grasp.

Among the obstacles in Carlisle’s path to dominance were the Cadets of Army, led by a hardnosed Kansan back named Dwight Eisenhower. In Thorpe, Eisenhower saw a legitimate target; knocking the Carlisle great out of the game would bring glory both to the Cadets and to Eisenhower. The symbolism of this matchup was lost on neither Carlisle’s footballers nor on Indians across the country who followed their exploits. Less than a quarter century after Wounded Knee, the Indians would confront, on the playing field, an emblem of the very institution that had slaughtered their ancestors on the field of battle and, in defeating them, possibly regain a measure of lost honor.

Filled with colorful period detail and fascinating insights into American history and popular culture, Carlisle vs. Army gives a thrilling, authoritative account of the events of an epic afternoon whose reverberations would be felt for generations.

"Carlisle vs. Army is about football the way that The Natural is about baseball.”
–Jeremy Schaap, author of I

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Random House (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140006600X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066001
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #612,589 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Subject, Flawed Research, September 29, 2007

By	Edmond E. Seay III (Brussels, Belgium) - See all my reviews

As much as I appreciate the need for a book like this, and as much as I wanted to like it, I felt let down by the sloppy research into the game of football which Lars Anderson conducted.

Anderson writes this:

"In the huddle, Gus Welch told the Indians that they were finally going to use their secret weapon. Carlisle broke the huddle. At first the Indians settled into their standard power formation with two halfbacks and a fullback lined up behind the quarterback. But then Welch called out a signal, prompting the players to shift into the double-wing formation. Thorpe, who was at left halfback, moved closer to the line and crouched in a three-point stance to the outside of the left offensive tackle. The right halfback, Alex Arcasa, did the same thing and aligned himself to the outside of the right offensive tackle. A nervous chatter rose from the crowd as the Indian players shifted into new positions. No one was sure what Carlisle was doing or what Warner, the great football magician, was up to."

This is simply wrong in several ways. First, a double wing formation has two wingbacks aligned outside the offensive ENDS, not tackles. Next, the "standard power formation" which Anderson describes was, of course, the T formation which all teams had used up to 1905. However, Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner had been using variations of the single wing formation since 1906, and had forsaken the T completely by 1910, according to an interview he gave that year to a Philadelphia newspaper.

It is true that Warner unveiled the double wing against Army; but his standard formation by 1912 was the single wing, and shifting one back to the weakside of the single wing to create the double wing formation was hardly the gasp-inducing tactic that Anderson describes. In fact, I doubt most of the fans observing the game even noticed the difference between the standard Warner single wing and his new double wing at first.

To non-students of the great game of football, this probably seems like a quibble, but it actually strikes at the overall credibility of Anderson's work. The Booklist review by Bill Ott (above) notes that Anderson indulges in a technique common to modern biographers -- pretending to know his subject's thoughts in an effort to liven up the narrative. However, Ott, continues, "the technique is based on solid research."

Is it, though? If Anderson got basic points of football history wrong, how "solid" could his research have been on other aspects of the book? And how entitled is he to pretend to know the thoughts of Thorpe, Eisenhower or Warner?

After all, he writes: "A nervous chatter rose from the crowd as the Indian players shifted into new positions." Were all football fans, or even all Army fans in 1912, so keen-eyed that they could spot a back lining up six or seven yards away from his normal single wing position when the huddle broke? Or is Anderson just creating fiction here, and calling it biography so that it matches with his flawed research?

Writers who attempt sports biography have a burden placed upon them to understand the nature and history of the sport which forms the context to their book. And in at least one significant instance, Anderson fails in this task.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three stories come together powerfully, February 22, 2008

By	Steven A. Peterson (Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL)) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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In 1912, one of the classic American football games was played--between Carlisle and mighty Army. A book published in 2007 covers much of the same territory, "The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation" by Sally Jenkins--and covers it well. But Lars Anderson's book, approaching the issues differently, likewise has created a wonderful examination of that game and events leading up to it.

The structure of Anderson's book weaves the story of three people together, culminating in that 1912 context. First, legendary coach Pop Warner; second, the great Indian athlete, Jim Thorpe; third, a gritty undersized football player and future military leader, Dwight Eisenhower. What was at stake in the Carlisle-Army game might be summarized by a segment of the pep talk Warner gave his team just before the contest began: "Remember it was their fathers and grandfathers who destroyed your way of life. Remember Wounded Knee. Remember all of this on every play. Let's go." And so the Indian team from Carlisle took on the Army team with those words ringing in their ears.

How did we get to this point? The book describes the arc of Warner's life, his childhood, his becoming an attorney, and the strange voyage leading him into coaching. Early on, he was a vagabond, moving from team to team (even leaving the position at Carlisle a bit before returning). He was an innovator and could inspire his team.

Then there was Thorpe, from the American Southwest. Growing up, he was always restless, would run away from school routinely. He ended up at Carlisle, but ran away from that institution, too. The book illustrates his foray into professional baseball during one such hiatus (which, of course, was to come back to haunt him). Upon his return to Carlisle, he led them ably. The story of his Olympic heroics are also recounted.

Then, Ike, who--paradoxically enough--also played professional baseball under an assumed name ("Wilson"), but he was never caught for that behavior. The story of the undersized, hot tempered youth who ended up going to West Point, desperate to make the football team.

The three narratives come together with that game on November 9th, 1912. The story of the game itself is well told (no sense giving away all the elements). Then, the story of the aftermath for all three protagonists.

This is indeed a spellbinding historical tale. The book is well researched and well written, filled with details that provide depth to the subjects of this work. Highly recommended for those with an interest in the subject. . . .

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor Research, September 9, 2008

By	James G. Sweeney (Monroe NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Don't be fooled by the media blitz behind this book. It and its companion book by Sally Jenkins ("the Real All Americans") is filled with serious errors and is the product of poor, second hand, research. The "Long Knives" metaphor around which this book is built is just plain false. Jenkins picked that up from Babe Weyand's first book. He, in turn picked it up from none other than the less than believable 1940-50's sportscaster Bill Stern who included it in a 1948 ghost written book for juvenile readers without single authoritative source behind it. In a lengthy series of correspondence and ghost written articles Warner never mentions the Long Knives pep talk once. Nor do authoritative and contemporaneous (with Warner) football historians such as Allison Danzig and Tim Cohane. As to the double wing, Warner's correspondence, newspaper articles and interviews reveal that the Warner was using the single wing in 1906 and the double wing in 1910. Even Army in this game used the single wing as were many other teams in the Country. The Indians didn't consider Army very important. The "Big Four" (Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale) were far more important to Carlisle and Warner than Army. As to Ike. He was a bit player on a terrible "D" who was knocked out of the game when, comic book like, he and his teammate Charley Benedict collided headon in a missed attempt to "high low" Thorpe in the 3d quarter. If the "Long Knives" metaphor can be distilled into one game it is the 1905 game between Carlisle and the Cadets at West Point - seven years closer to Wounded Knee - and a game far more important on the national stage than the 1912 game. It took a special act of the War Department to be played at all. Neither Anerson or Jenkins even mention it. The Indians won that game too. Want more? See my "There Were No Oysters - The Truth About the 1912 Army vs. Carlisle Game" which I wrote earlier this year in response to Jenkins' and Lars Anderson's companion book about the 1912 game.