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101 years ago this week, the great Jim Thorpe met with nearly a dozen other football team owners and coaches to help form a new professional athletics league. It was humbly called the American Professional Football Association, and Jim was unanimously elected to serve as its first president. 🗳

They were a rag-tag group, with the players wearing no pads, the jerseys had no numbers on them, and the popularity of professional football lagged far behind college football, golf ⛳️ and even bowling. 🎳

Only two years later the league would be renamed the "National Football League," and its popularity would soar, thanks in part to the first celebrity athlete in history, Jim Thorpe. 🤩 The post of president would be changed to “commissioner,” the title the NFL still uses today. 🏈

Today we remember and salute Jim's contributions to the sport, his legacy in the @nfl and we pay tribute to his impact on millions of athletes and fans in the 101 years since he helped establish the league that would become America’s Sunday afternoon tradition.

#BrightPathStrong #NFL #JimThorpe #GOAT #football #nflnews #nativeamerican #nativeathletes #ndn #ndnsports ...

#ThisDayInHistory.... 📜 The National Football League Hall of Fame opened 58 years ago today in Canton, Ohio, home of Jim Thorpe's beloved Canton Bulldogs. 🏈 Jim Thorpe was posthumously inducted as part of the inaugural class of the NFL Hall of Fame, along with other gridiron greats like Red Grange, George Halas, Ernie Nevers, Curly Lambeau and other legends of the early professional game.

Longtime New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter Arthur Daley wrote a column following the glitzy affair dedicated to Jim Thorpe's tribute. He noted that in addition to football, baseball and track and field, Jim could "box, wrestle, swim (and ) shoot -- There wasn't anything in sports that this abundantly endowed nature boy couldn't do superlatively well." But Daley pointed out it was football Jim was particularly famous for, and it was the sport that captured his heart.

Daley recounted a game in which Jim's Carlisle Indian School team played the Army Cadets. Jim returned a kickoff for a 90-yard touchdown, but the play was called back after the Indians were penalized for being offsides. The Cadets kicked again, and Jim answered the penalty with a 95-yard return on the second kickoff. 🏈

To learn more about Jim's storied career and his exhibit at the NFL Hall of Fame, visit their website https://loom.ly/Kl5dIfo or keep up with Bright Path Strong on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or our website. ⚡ #BrightPath #BrightPathStrong #JimThorpe #GOAT #NativeAmerican #NativeAthletes #NFLHallOfFame #CantonBulldogs #CantonOH #CantonOhio ...

Former Principal Chief of the Sac and Fox Nation Jack Thorpe — Jim Thorpe’s youngest son — tells the story of when Jim lived in Los Angeles and his picture was taken digging the foundation of the new Los Angeles County Hospital in March of 1931.

The photo was distributed nationally, and newspapers reported Jim had fallen on hard times, and had resorted to digging ditches. The real story was that Jim filled in that day for a friend whose wife was ill, so his friend could spend time with her and not lose his job.

While living in LA, Jim also helped Native Americans secure jobs in the film industry, earning him the nickname, Akapamata, the Sac and Fox word for “caregiver”

As we celebrate Labor Day, may we all have a little Akapamata within us, as we do our jobs, and pull together to help our coworkers and our community to make life a little easier for all. 💪🏽 #BrightPathStrong ⚡️

#jimthorpe #goat #nativeamerican #sacandfox #potawatomi #labordayweekend #laborday #Laborday2021 ...