Undefeated: List 5

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 "Stockholm"–"Epilogue: Back On Top."

Here are links to our lists for the book: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. in earnest
    in a serious manner
    The other Olympians on the ship knew Jim was training hard, and could see he was serious—“deadly in earnest,” remembered Abel Kiviat, who shared a cabin with Thorpe.
  2. snooty
    overly conceited or arrogant
    And, aware that snooty Europeans were annoyed that so many US athletes were the children of immigrants, Sullivan again pointed to Thorpe. “It also answers the allegation that most of our runners are of foreign parentage,” he said, “for Thorpe is a real American, if there ever was one.”
  3. contention
    the act of competing as for profit or a prize
    He faulted again on his second jump. If it happened a third time, he’d finish last in the event. He’d be out of medal contention.
  4. sentiment
    a personal belief or judgment
    “The fact that I was able to represent America in such a great thing as an Olympic meet will always be one of the things to which I shall point with pride all my life,” he said.
    Tewanima looked like he wanted to disappear. Thorpe, bighearted as always, stepped in, telling reporters, “And I believe that in everything I say I voice the sentiments of my teammate, Tewanima, here.”
  5. acclaim
    praise vociferously
    Football had made Jim Thorpe a star, but now he was world famous, acclaimed by sportswriters as “the finest all-around athlete in the world” and “the greatest all-around athlete in the history of sports.”
  6. exploit
    use or manipulate to one's advantage
    The promoters were just a bunch of “hustlers,” he said, “with their own personal version of exploiting Jim’s newfound national popularity.”
  7. mangy
    worn or threadbare
    “Look at those shoes,” Graves said, pointing to Ike’s mangy cleats. “Can’t you get anything better than that?”
  8. understatement
    something said in a restrained way for ironic contrast
    “He’s going to captain the team again, and I have a vague suspicion that he’s going to be worth the price of admission.”
    That’s what you call an understatement. In 1912 Jim Thorpe would treat football fans to a display of brilliance the sport had never seen.
  9. slew
    a large number or amount or extent
    And, as the Carlisle team had shown the nation, a faster, more open game was somewhat safer—and a lot more entertaining. With this in mind, football’s rule makers introduced another slew of changes for the 1912 season.
  10. embellish
    add details to
    According to the press’s embellished version, Thorpe and Warner had gotten into a furious fistfight, and Warner had decked his drunken halfback.
  11. unabashed
    not embarrassed
    Instead of heading home from DC, the Carlisle Indians got on yet another train and hurried to Canada for a Monday matchup with the University of Toronto rugby club. This was an unabashed money-grab by Warner, who knew his team could sell tickets anywhere—even in a country that didn’t play football.
  12. mettle
    the courage to carry on
    “They are very tricky players. And you people got to be on your mettle or you’re going to be surprised.”
  13. introverted
    shy, reserved, or inward looking
    The press always depicted Thorpe as serious and shy, but friends saw a different side of him. “Introverted is not the way I knew him,” Albert Exendine once told an interviewer.
  14. wage
    carry on (wars, battles, or campaigns)
    “But rather they believed the armed contests between the red man and the white man had never been waged on equal terms.”
  15. crafty
    marked by skill in deception
    “Carlisle may have a good team, equipped with all the tricks known to a crafty coach,” pronounced the Washington Times, “but the Army relies on hard tackling, speedy running, and that never-say-die spirit characteristic of all Army elevens. Who will pick the Indians?”
  16. elicit
    call forth, as an emotion, feeling, or response
    Reporters tried to elicit predictions from the team, with no luck. “Neither Warner nor Captain Thorpe cared to express an opinion as to the possible outcome of the game,” wrote the New York Times.
  17. striking
    having a quality that thrusts itself into attention
    As had so often been the case since Carlisle’s first games in the 1890s, the size difference was immediately striking. Army players were, on average, a few inches taller than the Indians, about twenty-five pounds heavier.
  18. vaunt
    show off
    Again, Army’s vaunted line stuffed Carlisle inches short of the end zone.
  19. promenade
    take a leisurely walk
    “He twisted this way and that, shook off Army tacklers and promenaded down the field.”
  20. gouge
    make a groove in
    Even more frustrating was that Carlisle’s smaller linemen were consistently gouging holes in Army’s massive line.
  21. insurmountable
    impossible to overcome
    Alex Arcasa scored again with just eleven minutes to play, giving Carlisle an insurmountable lead.
  22. dejected
    affected or marked by low spirits
    The Army star appeared shocked, dejected, and, when asked about Jim Thorpe, somewhat in awe.
  23. conservative
    unimaginatively conventional
    Camp stops to congratulate the Carlisle team, but his football philosophy is old-school, conservative, and he can’t help but nitpick.
  24. revel
    take delight in
    Back on campus, Pop Warner gave the players one day to savor their victory over Army and all it meant to their fellow Carlisle students, and to Native Americans everywhere. One day to revel in headlines like the New York Times’s THORPE’S INDIANS CRUSH WEST POINT.
  25. submission
    the condition of ceding control to someone or something else
    “He was fatigued to a degree that in most men would mean submission,” one writer described, “yet he would gather all of himself together each time and hurl it at that rival phalanx.”
  26. phalanx
    any closely ranked crowd of people
    “He was fatigued to a degree that in most men would mean submission,” one writer described, “yet he would gather all of himself together each time and hurl it at that rival phalanx.”
  27. resilient
    recovering readily from adversity, depression, or the like
    Carlisle’s dream of an undefeated season was gone, but this team was nothing if not resilient.
  28. elude
    escape, either physically or mentally
    “He eluded the outstretched arms of the tacklers with ridiculous ease,” said the Providence Journal.
  29. consummate
    having or revealing supreme mastery or skill
    “He plunged, dodged, ducked, sidestepped, wriggled, squirmed, swerved, and sped up and down the white stretches with consummate skill, certainty, speed and grace.”
  30. perennial
    lasting an indefinitely long time
    In the decades ahead, schools like Notre Dame, Alabama, and Oklahoma would replace the Big Four as perennial elites, and today many fans have no idea that one of football’s all-time greatest teams was the Carlisle Indians.
  31. illustrious
    widely known and esteemed
    “The Indians are very proud of the record made by their now illustrious kinsman,” reported a local paper.
  32. vindicated
    freed from any question of guilt
    Warner backed Sullivan, pointing out to reporters that Clancy had retracted his claims. The next day’s papers declared:
    JIM THORPE VINDICATED.
  33. hypocrisy
    pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not have
    More important, papers pointed out, was the blatant hypocrisy behind the whole overblown controversy. It was an open secret that college athletes took money to play ball, and that so-called “amateur” track stars accepted payments disguised as “travel expenses” to appear at meets.
  34. masquerade
    pretend to be someone or something that you are not
    “There are any number of professionals masquerading as amateurs,” pointed out the Washington Times.
  35. infraction
    a violation of a law or rule
    Why the talk of stripping medals for what amounted to a minor infraction that had nothing to do with competition on the track?
  36. lapse
    a break or intermission in the occurrence of something
    The International Olympic Committee’s own rules were clear: “Objections to qualifications of a competitor must be made in writing to the Swedish Olympic Committee before the lapse of thirty days from the distribution of prizes.”
  37. forge
    make something, usually for a specific function
    For the rest of his life, Jim Thorpe would talk about his life in terms of two distinct eras: pre- and post-Olympic scandal. This was the start of part two, and he was eager to do what he had always done—what the Carlisle football team had always done after a bitter defeat—to quietly, stubbornly, forge a new path.
  38. skimpy
    containing little excess
    Students came forward to testify about skimpy meals for non-athletes and cruel treatment, including beatings, by teachers.
  39. stint
    an unbroken period of time during which you do something
    He also had successful coaching stints at Stanford and Temple, and he is still among the winningest coaches in football history.
  40. legacy
    anything handed down by someone or something in the past
    Like so much of this story, Pop’s legacy at Carlisle is tough to summarize in a sentence.
Created on Sun Jul 07 16:46:41 EDT 2024 (updated Mon Jul 08 18:50:39 EDT 2024)

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