By Jim
“Track and field, because it was something I could do by myself, one-on-one, me against everybody else.”
“I have always liked sport and only played or run races for the fun of the thing.”
“The Yankees, you see, they’re a money team, they’re the class of baseball. You don’t ever bet against that,”
About Jim
“He was the greatest athlete who ever lived…. What he had was natural ability. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. All he had to see is someone doin’ something and he tried it … and he’d do it better.”
— 1912 Olympic silver medalist Abel Kiviat
“You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world. I would consider it an honor to shake your hand.”
— King Gustav V at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm
“Jim was very proud of the great things he’d done. A very proud man….Very late one night Jim came in and woke me up. … He was crying, and tears were rolling down his cheeks. `You know, Chief,’ he said, `the King of Sweden gave me those trophies, he gave them to me. But they took them away from me. They’re mine, Chief; I won them fair and square.’ It broke his heart and he never really recovered.”
— Chief Meyers, Thorpe’s roommate and catcher for the New York Giants