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.
Frank Longtoe, also known as the “Masked Marvel,” was a Pocket Billiards Player of Abenaki decent, who always wore a mask and was never photographed without his mask. The masked Marvel accepted all challenges including Ralph Greenleaf. In 1931, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not featured him as “The Best Player in the World,” winning 1500 out of 1512 games over a 3 years period.
Philip J. "Woodchuck" Welmas (February 26, 1891 - November 15, 1968) was a Native American professional football player in the early National Football League.
Jackson Sundown, a nephew of Chief Joseph, was with him on the flight of the Nez Perce in 1877. He was the first native American to win a World Championship Bronc Rider title in 1916, at the age of 53, more than twice the age of the other competitors who made it to the final round. He is also the oldest person to ever win a rodeo world championship title. He was posthumously inducted into the Pendleton Round-Up Hall of Fame in 1972, into the National Cowboys of Color Museum and Hall of Fame in 1983, and the American Indian Athletes Hall of Fame in 1994.
Mose J. Yellowhorse from the Pawnee tribe is considered to be the first full-blooded American Indian to play in baseball's big leagues.
"Chief" John Meyers, a Cahuilla native American, was one of the most famous baseball players of all times. He was a catcher for both the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
If you were to drive down dusty State Route 37 in Ohio, past grain elevators and feed stores, to a broken sidewalk in the town of LaRue, you would find one of those blue steel historical markers that rise from obscure landscapes around America. This one says: Home of the Oorang Indians, NFL’s Most Colorful Franchise