60 free Jim Thorpe trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Jim Thorpe won Olympic gold in mismatched shoes fished out of a bin, played major-league baseball and professional football and basketball, was the first president of what became the NFL, and ended up buried in a Pennsylvania town he had never visited. This quiz covers the whole story: the Sac and Fox boyhood in Indian Territory, the twin brother who died, Carlisle Indian School and Pop Warner, the 1911 upset of Harvard and the 97-yard run against Army with Eisenhower on the field. Then Stockholm 1912: the pentathlon and decathlon, King Gustav's "greatest athlete in the world", the ticker-tape parade, and the semi-pro baseball summers in Rocky Mount that cost him his medals. It follows him through the New York Giants and the Canton Bulldogs, the Oorang Indians, the World Famous Indians basketball tour, the Depression-era bit parts in Westerns, the Burt Lancaster biopic, the 1983 replica medals, the 2022 restoration as sole champion, and the long legal fight over his remains. Easy questions ask which sports he played; the expert tier asks for points totals, opponents and dates. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on Jim Thorpe and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you like this, try our quizzes on the Olympics, the NFL and Native American history.
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Q 01Jim Thorpe was a citizen of which Native American nation?
Sac and Fox
The nation later added Olympic rings to its flag in his honour.
Q 02At which Olympic Games did Thorpe win his two gold medals?
1912 Stockholm
He won the classic pentathlon and the decathlon, both new events that year.
Q 03In which two events did Thorpe win Olympic gold?
Pentathlon and decathlon
He also finished fourth in the high jump and seventh in the long jump.
Q 04Why was Thorpe stripped of his Olympic titles in 1913?
He had been paid to play semi-professional baseball
He earned as little as two dollars a game in the Eastern Carolina League in 1909 and 1910.
Q 05In which year did the IOC restore Thorpe's medals, presenting replicas to his children?
1983
The ruling turned on the fact that his disqualification came long after the 30-day protest window.
Q 06In 2022 the IOC changed Thorpe's status in its records from what to what?
From co-champion to sole champion
The families of Hugo Wieslander and Ferdinand Bie, and the Norwegian and Swedish committees, agreed.
Q 07Thorpe was born in Indian Territory, in what is now which US state?
Oklahoma
No birth certificate has ever been found, and even the date is disputed between May 22 and May 28, 1887.
Q 08Thorpe's Sauk name, Wa-Tho-Huk, is usually translated as what?
Bright Path
The full meaning is "Bright path the lightning makes as it goes across the sky".
Q 09What happened to Thorpe's twin brother Charlie?
He died of pneumonia at age nine
Charlie had helped him through the Sac and Fox agency school; Jim ran away several times afterwards.
Q 10Where did Thorpe enrol in 1904 in Pennsylvania, the place where his athletic talent was discovered?
Carlisle Indian Industrial School
His father had earlier sent him to Haskell in Kansas so he would stop running away.
Q 11Who coached Thorpe at Carlisle?
Pop Warner
Glenn Scobey Warner was reluctant to risk his best track athlete in football until Thorpe ran through the whole defence twice.
Q 12How did Thorpe first catch attention at Carlisle in 1907?
He beat the high jumpers in street clothes
His impromptu 5 ft 9 in jump broke the school record.
Q 13Besides football and track, Thorpe won a 1912 intercollegiate championship in which unlikely activity?
Ballroom dancing
He also played lacrosse, tennis, handball and boxed at Carlisle.
Q 21Which Swedish local favourite did Thorpe beat by 688 points in the decathlon?
Hugo Wieslander
Wieslander later refused the gold medal the IOC tried to give him, saying Thorpe was the rightful winner.
Q 22Thorpe's decathlon score of 8,413 points remained an Olympic record for how long?
Nearly two decades
It was his first and only decathlon; he placed in the top four in all ten events.
Q 23What footwear did Thorpe wear to win the decathlon after his own shoes were stolen?
A mismatched pair, one from a trash can
Q 14In 1911 Thorpe kicked all four field goals in Carlisle's 18-15 upset of which powerhouse?
Harvard
Harvard did not lose another game until 1915; Carlisle finished 11-1.
Q 15Which future US president played against Thorpe in Carlisle's 1912 win over Army?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower recalled that Thorpe "never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw".
Q 16Against Army in 1912, Thorpe had a 92-yard score nullified by a penalty. What did he do on the next play?
Ran 97 yards for a touchdown
Carlisle won 27-6.
Q 17How many touchdowns did Thorpe score to lead the nation in 1912, according to the College Football Hall of Fame?
29
He rushed for 1,869 yards, and Sports Illustrated retroactively named him the 1911 and 1912 Heisman winner.
Q 18Which poet taught Thorpe at Carlisle and recalled his "ease in his gait"?
Marianne Moore
She wrote that in the football lineup he was "the epitome of concentration".
Q 19The 1912 Olympic pentathlon consisted of long jump, javelin, discus, a 200 m sprint and which fifth event?
1500 m run
Thorpe won four of the five events and was third in the javelin, which he had never thrown before that year.
Q 20Which future IOC president was Thorpe's teammate in the 1912 multi-event competitions?
Avery Brundage
Brundage later rebuffed attempts to reinstate Thorpe, saying "Ignorance is no excuse."
He is often pictured wearing extra socks on one foot to make the odd shoes fit.
Q 24Which monarch reportedly told Thorpe, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world"?
King Gustav V of Sweden
The famous reply "Thanks, King" did not appear in print until 1948 and may be invented.
Q 25The challenge prize for Thorpe's pentathlon win had been donated by which ruler?
Czar Nicholas II of Russia
The Swedish king's trophy went with the decathlon.
Q 26On his return from Stockholm, Thorpe was the star of what kind of celebration on Broadway?
A ticker-tape parade
"I couldn't realize how one fellow could have so many friends," he said.
Q 27Weeks after the Olympics, Thorpe broke Martin Sheridan's record to win which title at Celtic Park in New York?
AAU All-Around Championship
Sheridan, a five-time Olympic champion, watched and called him "the greatest athlete that ever lived".
Q 28For which minor-league town had Thorpe played semi-pro baseball in 1909 and 1910?
Rocky Mount, North Carolina
Other college players did the same but used aliases; Thorpe used his own name.
Q 29Which newspaper first reported in January 1913 that Thorpe had been paid to play baseball?
The Worcester Telegram
The AAU's secretary James E. Sullivan pursued the case hard even though the public did not much care.
Q 30In his letter to the AAU, Thorpe explained he was "simply an Indian schoolboy" who did what?
Did not know that he was doing wrong
He noted that other college men had done the same, but under false names.