Undefeated: List 4

by Steve Sheinkin
This nonfiction narrative focuses on Sac and Fox Nation member Jim Thorpe, a 1912 Olympic gold medalist, who led Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian Industrial School's football team to victorious seasons that redefined the sport and immortalized his coach, Pop Warner.

This list covers "Second Half" from "The Forward Pass"–"All-American."

Here are links to our lists for the book: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
40 words 18 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. frail
    physically weak
    He grew to five eight, 135—still small, even for Carlisle. “I nearly missed him as a football player, for he looked too light and frail,” Warner later said.
  2. raucous
    disturbing the public peace; loud and rough
    “When a touchdown is made the scene beggars description,” wrote the New York World of the raucous enthusiasm on campus.
  3. poise
    great coolness and composure under strain
    Not only were they talented, selfless, and smart, they had the poise to handle the unique situation of being pioneers.
  4. devise
    come up with after a mental effort
    The players kicked and threw and fell on loose balls, but most of the time was spent on Pop’s twin keys to the game: “Good blocking and deadly tackling.” It was with this in mind that he devised what became known as the tackling dummy—a big bag filled with sawdust and hung from a rope.
  5. orchestrate
    plan and direct (a complex undertaking)
    With Penn on its heels, Mount Pleasant orchestrated what sportswriters began calling “whirlwind football,” mixing inside power rushes, outside speed runs, and long forward passes.
  6. humble
    cause to feel shame
    TIGERS HUMBLE INDIANS, announced the New York Times headline.
  7. upstart
    an arrogant or presumptuous person
    The sports world celebrated Princeton’s 16–0 thumping of Carlisle as if an annoying upstart had been shoved back in its place.
  8. camaraderie
    the quality of affording easy familiarity and sociability
    Thorpe had run away from every school he’d ever been sent to—being on the football team proved a much cozier means of escape.
    Best of all was the camaraderie. For the first time since he was a kid in Oklahoma, Jim was part of a family.
  9. cinch
    any undertaking that is easy to do
    There were no rules against pass interference.
    “They would wait till I almost had the ball, then chop me down,” Exendine explained years later. “I don’t want to brag, but by comparison, it’s a cinch to catch a pass nowadays.”
  10. concede
    admit or acknowledge, often reluctantly
    “They showed themselves masters of modern football,” conceded the Chicago Tribune, “and gave such an exhibition of its possibilities as will not be forgotten by anyone.”
  11. discernible
    capable of being seen or noticed
    Even after taking hard hits, one newspaper reported, Jim would leap to his feet, “picking his opponents up off the ground with a belt grip, all the while displaying a grin easily discernible from the stands.”
  12. obstinacy
    resolute adherence to your own ideas or desires
    “Oh, hell, Pop,” Thorpe would say, grinning, “what’s the use of going through ’em when I can run around ’em?”
    It was that grin, as much as the obstinacy, that Warner found unsettling.
  13. modest
    low or inferior in station or quality
    For Jim, who was used to winning track races and outrunning tacklers, baseball didn’t come as easily. Thorpe hit a modest .253 for the season, and went 9–10 as a pitcher.
  14. erratic
    likely to perform unpredictably
    Even when the team got attention, it was for the wrong reasons—like the erratic antics of Warner’s left guard, Asa Sweetcorn. After being tossed from a game yet again, Sweetcorn demanded an explanation.
  15. gait
    a person's manner of walking
    Not the face—he was still too far away—but something about the man’s rolling gait was familiar.
  16. succumb
    be fatally overwhelmed
    Everyone told Gus he had weak lungs; he’d likely be next to succumb to the dreaded disease.
  17. ragamuffin
    a dirty shabbily clothed urchin
    “I was just a ragamuffin,” Gus later said, “wearing odd pieces of cast-off clothing.”
  18. impoverished
    poor enough to need help from others
    Most former students simply wanted to go home, which meant returning to impoverished reservations.
  19. alight
    settle or come to rest
    “He seemed possessed of superhuman speed,” wrote the Pittsburgh Dispatch, “for wherever the pigskin alighted, there he was, ready either to grab it or to down the Pitt player who secured it.”
  20. barb
    an aggressive remark directed at a person
    Warner’s vow to quit cursing long forgotten, he hurled his sharpest barbs at his best player.
  21. casual
    marked by a lack of concern
    Thorpe flashed that casual grin he knew infuriated his coach and said, “I’m satisfied.”
  22. aversion
    a feeling of intense dislike
    “He was naturally bright,” Pop added, but he had “a pretty strong aversion for work.”
    “But I also had a strong aversion for getting beat,” Thorpe fired back, “and I did all right in avoiding that.”
  23. X factor
    a special quality that makes someone or something stand out
    Since first coming to Carlisle, the coach had sensed something extra motivating this team, something beyond the typical desire to win football games. “When playing against college teams,” Warner would later theorize, trying to explain this X factor, “it was not to them so much the Carlisle School against Pennsylvania or Harvard, as the case might be, but it was the Indian against the white man.”
  24. grueling
    characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion
    The entire team was feeling the effects of Carlisle’s grueling run of road games, and the theme all week on sports pages was that the Indians had simply played too many tough games to compete with “the ruler of the football universe,” as papers called bigger, fresher Harvard.
  25. dub
    give a nickname to
    Worst of all, of course, was the injury to Carlisle’s biggest star—or, as the Boston Globe dubbed him, “Crippled Jimmy Thorpe.”
  26. accommodate
    have room for; hold without crowding
    In Boston, temporary stands were added to accommodate the turnout of nearly forty thousand at Harvard Stadium.
  27. impregnable
    incapable of being overcome, challenged, or refuted
    He looked around, amazed by the skyscraper grandstands, the plush green field—and the enormous Harvard players. “Their line was supposed to be impregnable,” he later said.
  28. grudging
    unwilling or reluctant
    Even Coach Percy Haughton offered grudging praise for Jim Thorpe, telling sportswriters, “I realize that here is the theoretical super-player in flesh and blood.”
  29. sustain
    undergo, as of injuries and illnesses
    Most troubling was what the papers were calling Gus Welch’s “sprained back,” sustained in the Harvard game.
  30. mediocre
    lacking exceptional quality or ability
    Next up was a mediocre Syracuse team. “We looked on victory as certain,” Warner would later say.
  31. tender
    hurting
    Thorpe wasn’t sure how well he could play on his tender ankle, and never liked talking to sportswriters before games anyway.
  32. mire
    deep soft mud in water or slush
    By game time Saturday, the football field at Archbold Stadium was a layer cake of mud, slush, and snow.
    Five minutes into the first quarter, the players were ankle-deep in the icy mire, and all twenty-two uniforms looked the same—brown.
  33. strenuous
    characterized by or performed with much energy or force
    “He collapsed after the game,” the Syracuse school paper explained, “and only the strenuous work of two doctors put him in shape to leave with his team.”
  34. repertoire
    a collection of works that an artist or company can perform
    “Her repertoire of plays was scanty,” Outing commented, “and the execution was mediocre.”
  35. scanty
    lacking in extent or quantity
    “Her repertoire of plays was scanty,” Outing commented, “and the execution was mediocre.”
  36. livid
    furiously angry
    Warner was livid with him for so blatantly flouting team training rules.
  37. flout
    treat with contemptuous disregard
    Warner was livid with him for so blatantly flouting team training rules.
  38. decathlon
    an athletic contest consisting of ten different events
    Thorpe was on his way to Sweden to represent the United States in the pentathlon and decathlon, all-around events meant to test the world’s greatest athletes.
  39. ward
    a person who is under the protection of another
    He was in an awkward position, though, because the government did not consider Native Americans to be citizens of the United States. He was twenty-three years old, and the best athlete in the country—but, legally, he was a ward of the state.
  40. gallivant
    wander aimlessly in search of pleasure
    “Please send me $100 from my account,” he wrote. “Will need same this summer in taking trip to Sweden with Olympic team.”
    The agent refused, suggesting Thorpe quit “gallivanting around the country” and get to work on his land allotment on the reservation.
Created on Sun Jul 07 16:43:50 EDT 2024 (updated Mon Jul 08 18:22:42 EDT 2024)

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