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The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation

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For a few years, I lived adjacent to Haskell, an "Indian school" in Lawrence, Kansas. I had some, but little direct contact with the federal effort to provide higher educational opportunities for American Indians. It was a cursory exposure. It was also the place where Jim Thorpe started his formal education. For any longstanding football fan, the Jim Thorpe Carlisle story is familiar, popular and tragic territory. It may be a coincidence that Lars Anderson, who earlier covered the Jim Thorpe Army-Carlisle story has another book, "The All-Americans". Now we have the REAL All Americans and the story is a whole lot more fascinating than a simple rags to riches back to rags story like Thorpe's.

Although the opening scene is a fateful football match in New York, the real roots of the story lie in the Midwest, forty years earlier. Jenkins builds her story slowly, with a thorough history of the debacle we call "Indians and the U.S. Army". The horrendous treatment of the Indians by the federal government finally prompts a visionary officer to propose an educational alternative to warfare, as a method of assimilation into the white man's culture. In some respects, and certainly on the surface, this is an arrogant solution. Dragging children and young adults from their families, culture and land is the ultimate form of cultural smugness. But, given the period, the problem, and the potentail for a solution, the Carlisle solution was worth the effort. And, in many resepcts, it worked. Henry Pratt, an enlightened -- for that period -- Army officer commits most of his life to building an institution to serve Indians deprived of almost all of their land and dignity by Manifest Destiny and broken treaties. He is both a caring, paternal figure and a stern task master, both loved and despised. Much of the same can be said for Pop Warner, Carlisle's most famous coach. He once left the team for a year in a pique and went on first to Pitt, then to other schools before ending his career at Temple.

Football became a tool, one part of a strategy for the assimilating Indians to not only become part of American culture but also to wreak some symbolic vengeance on the oppressor, taking on Army on the playing field rather than the battlefield. And, for a time, this worked well. Pop Warner and Jim Thorpe helped build a short-lived but memorable dynasty, an ironic all-American icon. The sad part is their victory over Army was bittersweet and their success short-lived. Carlisle lost their following game and within five years, Carlisle was no more. War in Europe and a re-examination of this public investment in Indian education closed the school. Few students ever earned degrees from Carlisle in its forty years. Assimilation via education worked -- but only a little.

Jenkins offers a fascinating read with a strong narrative, interesting anecdotes and angles, and a healthy respect for history. She provides brief, follow up biographies on the key players and their lives after Carlisle. It isn't always a pretty picture, but you needn't be a football fan to enjoy this sad but engrossing story.

I heard this book reviewed on NPR and immediately purchased it. I am not particularly interested in football ( sacrilege, I know!) but the game between Carlisle and West Point peaked my interest. I saw a great exhibit at the Heard Museum several years ago about the Indian schools, Carlisle among them, and I wanted to know more about the school and the famous game.
The book is a fascinating account of the Carlisle school, the development of football, coach "Pop" Warner, Jim Thorpe and the famous football game with West Point. It will interest anyone with an interest in football history, but it is also of interest to those who want to know more about the great Indian chiefs, what the US did to try and control the Indians, what happened to the children of the great chiefs at Carlisle. The book also has other facts and anecdotes I found of interest. There is a fair amount about football at Princeton, Harvard, Yale and U of Pennsylvania (these teams all played Carlisle). There is also mention of Teddy Roosevelt and poet Marianne Moore, who taught at Carlisle for a short period.
The book is well written, a real pleasure. A great father's day gift! I have already purchased another copy for a friend and am passing my copy to my adult son as a "gotta read this!"

If you are a student of Indian culture and the game of football, you are in for the treat of your life. Sally Jenkins has given the reader an engrossing overlay of a school that attempted a social experiment of indoctrination and assimilation of displaced Western American Indians into a predominately white man's state of refinement. Though only partially successful in forcibly educating children of notable relocated tribes, Carlisle introduced students to life skills and to the newly emerging sport that would captivate the country in ensuing years.

Under tutorlage of the legendary coach Pop Warner, the Carlisle Indians would revolutionize the game. Reverses, hidden ball tricks, the single wing, sweeps, audibles, hurry up offense and most innovatively, the forward pass became the stock in trade of the team that included celebrated olympian, Jim Thorpe. In 1912, with a record of 11-0-1, including a 27-6 victory over the much touted Army team that fielded a young cadet by the name of Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Carlisle Indians became the highest-scoring team in the country.

Scandal, governmental mismanagement, lack of visionary leadership, and later gridiron failures would eventually bring down this once esteemed institution, but its legacy is resurrected through the author's informative, entertaining, thought-provoking handiwork.

This written documentary has given myself, and hopefully all who indulge, a most enjoyable, rich, and rewarding read as we enter the summer season and anticipate the beginning of another collegiate football year.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the ongoing hostilities between the American government and Native Americans began to wind down. By this time it had become abundantly clear that the white man had indeed won the West and that most Native Americans would have to settle for whatever our government was willing to give them. Among those who was extremely disturbed by these developments was an officer in the U.S. Calvary named Richard Henry Pratt. Throughout his long and distinguished military career Pratt had witnessed first hand the injustices done to the Native Americans. He abhorred the ongoing treaty violations perpertrated by the American government and thoroughly understood and sympathized with many of the Indians grievances. Pratt was bound and determined to do something about it. In 1879, Pratt established the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, PA. It was Pratt's sincere desire to make Indian youths the equal of white youths and he firmly believed that the way to achieve this end was to teach Indian youngsters the white mans ways. Not everyone agreed with his tactics. Over the next four decades this unusual and highly controversial school would certainly make its mark on the American scene. "The Real All Americans" documents the 40 year history of Carlisle and introduces us all to the amazing cast of charactors who would teach, coach and go to school there.

Before I read "The Real All Americans" I had absolutely no idea that Native Americans had played such a prominent role in the evolution of the game of football. Sally Jennings theorizes that as hostilities were winding down out West the game of football began to take hold back East. In those days football was an extremely violent game with very few rules. Football programs sprung up at elite colleges like Harvard, Yale and Princeton. In those days the game was pretty much dictated by power running. There was precious little innovation. Now while all this was happening back East young American Indians were developing an affinity for the game as well. However these young men were much smaller and lighter than their counterparts at the Eastern schools. So out of necessity they played a very different brand of football. In the early 1890's some of the students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School petitioned Richard Henry Pratt to start a football team. He reluctantly agreed to do so and within just a few short years Carlisle found itself playing games against some of the most talented college teams in the nation. Soon an innovative young coach by the name of Glenn "Pop" Warner would arrive on the scene. Warner drew up a number of new plays that put an emphasis on speed and quickness. Before long Carlisle would be considered one of the top football teams in the nation. And just a few years later a young Native American named Jim Thorpe would come to play at Carlisle. Before his career at Carlisle was through many would come to consider him as nothing less than the "greatest athlete in the world".

"The Real All Americans" brings to life an extremely important piece of Americana. Whether you are a sports fan, history buff or just someone interested in expanding your horizons this is an informative and highly entertaining book that is certainly well worth your time. Kudos to Sally Jennings for an outstanding job! Highly recommended.

This is absolutely one of the best sports history books I've ever read. Sally Jenkins tells the full history of the Carlisle Indian football team, truly an amazing part of football history.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was opened by Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt in 1879. Pratt had been the Superintendent of a prison for Indians incarcerated during the various outbreaks of violence on the plains where he taught Indians to read and write and believed they were every bit the equal of white men. When Pratt opened the school, some of the students were sons of the very same men imprisoned by the U.S. government under Pratt, and in fact some of the students were essentially hostages of the U.S. government. Pratt believed that through education, discipline, and adoption of white man's ways, that Indians could fully succeed in the growing American nation. While horribly paternalistic, it was enlightened for the times, as Pratt firmly believed Native Americans were every bit the equal of white men if given the chance to succeed.

Once the school opened some of the students became enamored of a new game evolving, American football, then dominated by the Ivy League schools, especially Yale and Harvard. Pratt agreed to put together a team called the Carlisle Indians, and eventually hired Glen "Pop" Warner to be its head coach. The school opened its inaugural football season in 1895, when they went 4-4 despite being robbed by the referees in some games. Given a very small recruiting pool and the violence of the game in that era, Pop Warner eventually made an undersized, and often undermanned team competitive with the likes of the dominant Yale, Harvard, and Army teams of the era.

The team soon had one of the most famous athletes in American history, Jim Thorpe. Jenkins does an excellent job of providing a mini-biography of Thorpe in this book and what he meant to the school. Thorpe was a somewhat eccentric, fun loving, even lazy character but his athletic prowess was amazing. Jenkins does an fantastic job of exploring Thorpe and the way Pop Warner got the best out of him, most of the time.

This book succeeds on many, many levels. First, it acts as a history of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and the regime of Pratt. It fully places this amazing football team within the context of its times and what it meant for a team, all Native Americans, to be facing and competing equally with the scions of high society, and military teams, on the football field. She also puts the football team into the context and mission of the school itself, which was to instill education and discipline among its students, and how the team gave the school an additional reason to be proud. In fact, the team's successes, and even its character when being cheated against by referees, was proof of Pratt's philosophy and a showcasing of the proud, smart, solid character of its students.

Second, it acts as a biography, of sorts, of Glen "Pop" Warner and his unique coach-player relationship with the often recalcitrant Jim Thorpe. Warner was able to get the best out of Thorpe, and is the man who shepherded him to his gold medals in the Olympics. Further, Jenkins brings out how Warner was an innovator in the game, loving trick plays, but also devising strategies to take advantage of the smaller but speedier Indian teams against larger foes in an era when smashing into the line of scrimmage and sheer brawn and violence was the norm.

Third, she brings the team and drama to life in some of its biggest accomplishments and its biggest games. Maybe the most storied game of the Carlisle Indian team was its defeat of Army in 1912, only 22 years removed from the Army massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee. The Carlisle team featured Jim Thorpe, and the Army team included Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Indians won and had a great trick play. Read about it.

Finally, she follows the later careers of the players on this team. Some went on to serve in the U.S. military, including World War I. Others became successful in law or business. Yet others went home and become militant agitators for Indian rights. Not something Pratt had in mind, but their independence and intelligence was also something instilled in them at Carlisle.

This is a fabulous, well researched, and well written history of a forgotten team. It is a piece of history that goes beyond sports and beyond football. I highly recommend it.

This is a fascinating story of the evolution of football coupled with a bittersweet tale of the challenges facing several Native Americans youths as well-meaning people try to civilize them through an American education at a school specially designed for that purpose. The book is well written and holds your attention from beginning to end. While saddened at the misguided efforts to wipe out a civilization, I was heartened by the courage and spunk of the students featured and especially cheered by their successes on the football field. I enjoyed the book and recommend it highly. Also a wonderful portrait of Pop Warner and his creative football strategies.

"The Game, like the country in which is was invented, was a rough, bastardized thing that jumped out of the mud." Thus opens Sally Jenkins' impressive "The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed A Game, A People, A Nation. While primarily about the football team from The Carlisle Indian Industrial School (CIIS) in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the author also covers the end of the Indian "era," the creation of CIIS by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, and the development of football as a college sport.

Jenkins spends the first 100 pages in detailing the events leading up to the creation of Carlisle's football team. Captain Pratt was stationed in Indian Territory after the Civil War. Given a command of 20 Buffalo Soldiers and 25 Cherokee scouts, Pratt was astounded to discover that the Indians were intelligent and civilized and not "atrocious aborigines." After dealing with Indians as both scouts and prisoners, he came to the conclusion that the only way to solve the Indian problem was through education. With some monetary assistance from the government, he single-handedly founded the CIIS.

Soon after the school opened, football began taking off on college campuses. Ironically,
"the rising popularity of football had closely followed the ebbing of the frontier wars. It was as though America, at a loss for what to do with itself once the wilderness was subdued, had hit on football as the answer." Pratt reluctantly let the Indians form a team. Although always outnumbered, outmanned and undersized, with the help of innovative coach Glenn "Pop" Warner, they were soon playing competitively with the best teams in the nation. "Under Warner's creative tutelage, they had an astounding array of trick plays, reverses, end-arounds, flea flickers, and spirals through the air." They started when football was in its infancy--there was little equipment, no formal officiating, no overt coaching during games, a different scoring system, no passing, a few dozens deaths each year, and lots of cheating and violence. The Indians, with their slight size, skilled passing and great speed eventually changed the way football was played. After one of their best seasons in 1912, the "New York Times" wrote that the football played by Carlisle was "the most perfect brand of football ever seen in America."

Carlisle is probably best remembered as the alma mater of Jim Thorpe. He was originally a track star before becoming a football player. In fact, Pop Warner was reluctant to have Thorpe join the team, thinking he was much too scrawny and not wanting to lose a track athlete (Warner coached both sports). It was Warner who took Thorpe to the Olympics in Stockholm where he came home a champion.

Jenkins provides a well-rounded and fascinating account that explains how these historical events all converged on this tiny campus in Carlisle, PA. The only thing I think is lacking in The Real All Americans is an index.

This is a fascinating book, where different themes--some positive and some negative--are intertwined. It is the story of the founding of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and its fabled football team.

Symbolically, it is interesting that Sally Jenkins begins the book by speaking of the momentous football game scheduled in 1912 between the Carlisle football team (featuring the legendary Jim Thorpe) and Army. Given that it was only a short time previously that the lugubrious incident at Wounded Knee had occurred, the game featured multiple layers of meaning.

Chapters 2 and 3 seem far afield. Cavalry officer Richard Henry Pratt is featured. He fought in the Civil War and in the Indian Wars after that. He felt that it was intolerable that Native Americans were accorded little respect and few rights. He began to have a dream that he would develop a school for Native American children to teach them relevant skills--and to strip them of their heritage at the same time. For example, students were given good proper English names, as opposed to their given names. In short, in his view (page 63), "What was needed was a large institution devoted to civilizing Indian children and fitting them for citizenship."

The old barracks at Carlisle, Pennsylvania were to be the site for this experiment. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened in November, 1879; the original enrollment was 147 students. The book chronicles the development of the school. And its football team. Students first started playing in the early 1880s. Coaches ranged from Vance McCormick to the legendary Pop Warner and so on. Warner was innovative and worked well with the talent that he had.

The book moves toward the climactic game with Army, which Carlisle won handily, as a matter of fact. Warner introduced the brand new "double wing" formation and bamboozled Army. Again, the layer of meaning is intriguing.

The book ends with the swift decline of the team and the school itself.

All in all, a well written and telling story. There are cultural lessons as well as interesting character sketches. A final Epilogue nicely outlines what happened to the major players afterwards. This is a book that is surely worth reading.

Sally Jenkins has done a thorough, definitive job of research to tell this fascinating tale. But it is not, as many reviewers have indicated, the first time the story has been told. The book "Go, Indians! Stories of the Great Indian Athletes of the Carlisle School" (Ward Ritchie Press, 1971), covered the same material, in a book for teenage readers. That book said it first; Sally has extended the story and done a wonderful job of expanding it for an adult audience.

Jenkins' Real All Americans is reminiscent of a James Michener novel. No, it doesn't start with the dinosaurs, but it does go back to the essential beginning of the saga, and the story unfolds from there to set the stage. In it, we learn that while football was an invention of the Ivy league, it was the Indian students of Carlisle who gave us the game as we know and love it today. The story is compelling and a must-read for anybody who loves the sport.