Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

A new book by Steve Sheinkin "Undefeated Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team" was reviewed by Carvell Wallace in the New York Times Book Review January 15. I'm curious what others think of the assertions implicit in the opening paragraph:

Few of today’s football fans know that much of the game as we now recognize it was developed by a group of Native American kids who were coerced into a Pennsylvania assimilation camp called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where they were coached by a man named Glenn (Pop) Warner. Before their legendary seasons from 1907 to 1912 there was no forward pass, no misdirection play, no receivers or tight ends.

Moran wrote:A new book by Steve Sheinkin "Undefeated Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team" was reviewed by Carvell Wallace in the New York Times Book Review January 15. I'm curious what others think of the assertions implicit in the opening paragraph:

Few of today’s football fans know that much of the game as we now recognize it was developed by a group of Native American kids who were coerced into a Pennsylvania assimilation camp called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where they were coached by a man named Glenn (Pop) Warner. Before their legendary seasons from 1907 to 1912 there was no forward pass, no misdirection play, no receivers or tight ends.

That's very misleading. The forward pass, of course, was legalized in 1906, so Carlisle really had nothing to do with that, and the passing attack was certainly not a mainstay of Warner's offense. As for misdirection, A.A. Stagg was drawing them up at Springfield in 1890. Of course, there were no receivers before the forward pass was legalized. And "tight end" didn't enter the football vocabulary until 1949, so that has nothing to do with Thorpe, Carlisle, or Warner. So it's just a mishmosh of words thrown together by one of today's football fans who doesn't know all that much about the sport's history but is trying to impress people with his supposed knowledge.

Moran wrote: Few of today’s football fans know that much of the game as we now recognize it was developed by a group of Native American kids who were coerced into a Pennsylvania assimilation camp called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where they were coached by a man named Glenn (Pop) Warner. Before their legendary seasons from 1907 to 1912 there was no forward pass, no misdirection play, no receivers or tight ends.

Is that the first paragraph of the book or the review?

That's the review - I've ordered the book so we'll see if the author sets out the same claims.

In what was Jim Thorpe undefeated?

Amazon is quick - here is the blurb from the jacket that explains the book title, I believe

I'm about half way through the book - the reviewer took liberties the author does not take - I'm enjoying it -