The Real All Americans Paperback – Illustrated, 12 August 2008

What a wonderful story of a marvelous accomplishment. Crazy Horse might have been impressed and there is no greater accolade than that..

"The Real All Americans," the story of the Carlisle Indians football team, is more history than sports. Sports fans might be disappointed since the first 125 pages are mainly history, focusing on the Indian chief "American Horse" and a young soldier Richard Pratt, who went on to found the Carlisle School for Indians.Pratt's experiment with the Indians began at Fort Marion with Sarah Ann Mather helping to teach and educate the Indians. Pratt's goal was "total erasure of the old tribal life and the abolishment of the corrupt reservation system." Many of the chiefs were upset by the changes forced upon the Indians at Fort Marion.Carlisle, "a social experiment unlike other schools," fielded its first football team in 1894. Its players were usually outsized, physically abused by opponents, and discriminated against by officials. They played, however, with lots of heart.The book details the evolution of college football, particularly among the Ivy League teams, the center of power. The Carlisle Indians gained respect of their opponents, while helping to revolutionize the sport.The arrival of Jim Thorpe and his rise to fame is chronicled. From 1911 through 1913, Carlisle posted a 38-3 record.After Carlisle beat Army, 27-6, in 1912, the New York Times wrote that "Carlisle played the most perfect brand of football ever seen in America." Carlisle's football program, however, ended after the 1917 season.In the epilogue, author Sally Jenkins gives a thumbnail sketch as to what happened to some of the major figures associated with the Carlisle School for Indians after its football program ended.Jenkins does a wonderful job telling the story of this legendary school and its football program. The book is thoroughly researched, footnoted and easy to read. Highly recommended for anyone interested in sports history.

"The Real Americans" is a well written and researched book. I have always wondered about the beginings of Carlisle. I was would have like to see more about the students who attended. It was very sparce on details about the ending of the Carlisle a school. The young girls who atttended the school, what were their accomplishments. Not enough pictures of the students and Jim Thorpe. I was looking for more of the latter. As an overall review of the book, I found it very interesting and worth the reading time.

This is an outstanding book about the Carlisle football team of the early 1900's, principally because it describes the history of Richard Henry Pratt and his "experiment" with prisoners at Fort Marion, Florida, that led up to his founding and building of the Carlisle Indian School in 1879. While the author (Jenkins) accepted the faulty narrative that Pratt's design for Carlisle was to destroy Indian languages, cultures and children, she was generally accurate in describing the educational development of Carlisle under Pratt's leadership and the deterioration of education after Pratt was removed in 1904. Jenkins acknowledged the crucial role of Albert Exendine, a Delaware Indian student at Carlisle who mentored Jim Thorpe and was instrumental in the success of the Carlisle football team. Exendine was born in Indian Territory (now Bartlesville, Oklahoma) and preceded Thorpe at Carlisle four years earlier. He was the first Indian to complete a law degree at Dickinson College (in Carlisle) and became a successful football coach and Indian activist who believed that the removal of Pratt and the closing of Carlisle (1918) "set Indian education back 100 years." (pg. 306). Scholars of the history of Indian education have badly missed Pratt's legacy at Carlisle, and Jenkins' book gives a reasonably balanced story for readers to decide.

For revisionist history scholars/fans, The REAL ALL-AMERICANS, by Sally Jenkins, is one of the most important books ever written. It is important because it encompasses several themes and several area's, such as American history, Native Americans, education, assimilation, political science, and sports. If you are interested in those topics, this book speaks for itself. I suppose I am biased, being a Native American Studies scholar, but if you are Native American, this book will make you proud of your heritage. Used The REAL ALL-AMERICANS as a textbook and students liked it(so did the friends & relatives they loaned it to). If you are an educator or sports fan, you will learn some new and interesting things. At first glance, it may seem to be merely a sports book, but it is much more. I give it my highest recommendation.