Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team by Steve Sheinkin

Title: Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

Author: Steve Sheinkin

Publisher: Roaring Book Press

Date: January 17, 2017

Length: 288 pages

Genre: Non Fiction, Sports

I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jim Thorpe: Super athlete, Olympic gold medalist, Native American
Pop Warner: Indomitable coach, football mastermind, Ivy League grad

Before these men became legends, they met in 1907 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where they forged one of the winningest teams in American football history. Called "the team that invented football," they took on the best opponents of their day, defeating much more privileged schools such as Harvard and the Army in a series of breathtakingly close calls, genius plays, and bone-crushing hard work.

This is an astonishing underdog sports story—and more. It’s an unflinching look at the U.S. government’s violent persecution of Native Americans and the school that was designed to erase Indian cultures. Expertly told by nonfiction powerhouse author Steve Sheinkin, it’s the story of a group of young men who came together at that school, the overwhelming obstacles they faced both on and off the field, and their absolute refusal to accept defeat.

Description from NetGalley

I am not a football fan, but this underdog story sucked me in with its mix of great sports writing, painful history, and the indomitable spirit of the Carlisle Indian School players. The game sequences were well written and the history and social issues facing the students (and all Native Americans) were clearly explained. With humor thrown in at appropriate times, Sheinkin has written an engaging story that will appeal to readers who enjoy sports, history, or non fiction books in general. This is also a great option for reluctant readers if you can get them past the intimidating page length.

What I liked

The football: I sometimes find sports non fiction to be a bit slow and loaded with boring trivia or overly simplistic and lacking in the details younger readers want. Undefeated is well balanced, giving great detail without overloading the narrative and losing the reader. American football originally resembled the mutant love child of rugby and a death match, very different from today's game and this needed to be explained. I was engaged in the story, I got caught up in the tension of the games and rooted for the Carlisle players. The games were intense and brutal, underscoring just what a phenomenal athlete Jim Thorpe was.

But the sport was just loosely organized combat.

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Serious Injuries were down; two college players had died that year, but that was seen as a major improvement.

The history: Thorpe's story doesn't happen in a vacuum and Sheinkin does a great job of laying the ground work for Jim's time with the team. For the first half of Undefeated the story moves back in forth in time, explaining the history of broken treaties between the US government and various tribes and the creation of the reservations, Thorpe and Warner's early life, as well as the development of American football in general. Sheinkin does a wonderful job of writing about the Carlisle Indian School and the racism, oppression, and abuse the children in the Indian schools faced in an age appropriate manner. There's a lot of information to take in and Sheinkin handles the narrative well. Younger readers will have a good understanding of the early football, the challenges and oppression facing the Native American students, and impact the Carlisle team had on the modern game of football.

By wrenching boys and girls from their families, telling them that everything they knew and loved was worthless, Pratt was inflicting tremendous stress and pain... Six students died in the first year at Carlisle. Pratt set aside a spot on campus for a cemetery, and the number of small white gravestones would steadily grow in the years to come.

The conversational tone and pacing: Sheinkin's writing style really involves the reader in the story, making it much easier to keep track of the large cast of characters, historical events, and the many football games. The book moves along at a nice clip so you feel that you're trucking through an entertaining read as opposed to slogging through an almost 300 page book.

What didn't work for me

Length: The length is really the only thing I can complain about. Setting up the events that brought the country, football, the Carlisle School, and Jim Thorpe to the right point in history was necessary. Sheinkin even points out that Carlisle "was no on-man team" and the team's back story was very interesting. I think this would be a great book for reluctant readers who are interested in sports if you can convince them to give it a try.

Rating: 5.0

It was a great book, an appealing balance of history and sports, I enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who has kids in grades 4-8 who enjoy sports, sports history, or sport biographies. And if you're an adult who likes those topics, this is a fast and satisfying read for you and the page length won't be as much of an issue. And I guarantee that football fans will be amazed by the sport's early days.