AMATEUR ATHLETICS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 5, 28 February 1913, Page 2

AMATEUR ATHLETICS

AMERICAN- CHAMPION'S "CONFKSSION." THORPE AND TttE OLYMPIC .GAMES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAX PRAtfCISOO, sth Februaiy. The line between professionals and amateurs in cport is drawn very olouely in the United Slates, ami immediately j tile suggestion was made that Jaintu ! j flioi'iie, tbe Imliati) who was the gensni» tiou of the Olympic Game* at Stockholm )a-3t year, had three vars ago played baseboll for money, a rigid investigation wnp set afoot. Within !e?s than a week after Thorpe's amateur standing was questioned lie wrote to the AmateUr Ath Jetic Union, which controls non-profos-sional sports in America, "confessing" the truth of the charge. In his summer vacations , from school ho had, he admitted, played ■ baseball for money, not because he needed the money but b«> cause he liked plttyiftg the game. At once the union stripped Thorpe oi hi* amateur standing, and otdei'fetl the return of all pvioZs won by him since 1909— the yuar in which he first playou professional baseball. All the prizes and points .won by him at Stockholm in behalf of the United States are forfeited. 'Ihe k»s of the six points gained by the Indian still leaves this country win* ncr of the Olympic games by a wide margin, however, the total standing: United States 79. Finland, in second place, 29 points. J Thorpe is regarded in America as the chatnpioh sll-rouhtl athlete of tho world, and the most wonderful performer in modern times. He is an Indian of the Sac and Fox tribe, and was first heard of some years ago while playing foo'tbal 1 for the Carlile School, an Indian institu J tion. it Stockholm, Thorpe won both the pentathlon and the decathlon. In the pentathlon he finished first in tho running broad jijmp f first ( in the 200 metre run, and third, in the javlin event In the decathlon he had a nejeentage I of 8412.955, against 7724.495 by Wie» lander, of Sweden, his nearest opponent. Public opinion seems to bo that Thorpe is deserving more of symnaßiy than censure in his, unhappy plight. As he himself say* in his letter admitting the fact of his professionalism. "I was not very wise in the ways of the world, and did not realise that it would make me a professional in track sports, although I learned from the other players that it would be better for me not to let anyone know that I was playing, and for that reason I never told anyone in the school about it until to-day. , .In fact, I did not know that I was doing wrong, because I was doing what I knew several other college men had done, except that they did not use their own names." i The Indian athlete's Btatus ac a professional was no sooner established than all the leading b&Bebfcll managers began bidding for his services. He has been offered tbe opportunity v of wearing the uniform of any one of the six big major 1 league clubß of the country. As a baseball player he would be worth anywhere from £1800 to £3000 ft year, and considerably more if he developed into a star player.