Native American athletes and sports heroes include baseball players Louis Sockalexis and John “Chief Meyers, Billy Mays, Olympic Gold Medalist, all round athlete Jim Thorpe, who excelled in 11 sports, and many more. Profiles of native American sports heroes.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Friday that proceedings should begin to return the body of Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe to Oklahoma, a major step in a decades-long battle that Thorpe's sons and the Sac and Fox tribe have waged to return his body to the place where he grew up.Continue to Judge rules Jim Thorpe’s body should be returned to Oklahoma →
J.R. Cook, executive director of United National Indian Tribal Youth in Oklahoma City, believes Bradford is the first quarterback with American Indian heritage to start for a major college program since Sonny Sixkiller at Washington in 1972.
Continue to Quarterback Sam Bradford is source of pride for the Cherokee Nation →
Although it was discovered in the 1960s that the first Native American in the major leagues was James Madison Toy, who played in the American Association in 1887 and 1890, the first man known and treated as an American Indian was Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot tribe.Born on October 24, 1871 on the Penobscot Indian reservation outside of Old Town, Maine, Sockalexis displayed incredible athletic talent in his youth.Continue to Louis Sockalexis, first American Indian to play major league baseball →