Olympic champion and football legend:

Jim Thorpe is known as one of the world’s greatest athletes of his time — as an Olympic champion and professional football legend.
A statue of Jim Thorpe stands at the entrance to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The inscription on the statue reads, “Jim Thorpe was named first team Walter Camp All American in 1911 and 1912. He won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1912 Olympics, played professional baseball and in 1920 was elected the first president of what became the National Football League. He was the first great performer of that league, its highest paid player, both the precursor and prototype of the weapons of modern football.”

Jim Thorpe in the late 1910s or early 1920s.

Thorpe’s athletic achievements at the collegiate level were at the Carlisle Indian Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which competed against the major universities of the time. On a return to Carlisle in 1941, Thorpe stood in the middle of the field and drop-kicked a football over the goal. He then turned and place-kicked a field goal over the other end zone — at the age of 52 and wearing street shoes.
Besides his accomplishments in football, he was a one-man track team and excelled in basketball, lacrosse, baseball and all other sports he attempted. He also won a national ballroom dancing contest.
He was voted the greatest football player and the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century. He was also voted “Athlete of the Century” by a poll at the end of the century hosted by ABC.
Sports historian Murray Olderman called him the “greatest all-around athlete in the history of sports, dating back to Coreobus of Elis in the eighth century before the birth of Christ.”