A student is writing a report for English class about great athletes from the past. Read the draft of the introduction and body
of the paper and complete the task that follows. Michael Phelps captured the nation's attention when he won numerous Olympic medals, but long ago another American athlete, Jim Thorpe, made headlines as a double medal winner. Not one to stick to only one sport, Thorpe also excelled in football, baseball, and basketball. Born James Francis Thorpe in 1888 in a one-room cabin on an Indian Reservation in Oklahoma, he was of French, Irish, and Native American heritage and grew up among the Sac and Fox Nation. His Native American name, Wa-Tho-Huck, meaning "bright path," was appropriate because Thorpe's athletic talent would pave a bright path for him. When Thorpe was 16, his father sent him to the Carlisle Institute, a school for Indian youth in Pennsylvania, where he played nearly every spe offered and was named an All-American in football. Thorpe competed in the 1912 Olympics, winning gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon. His medals were later taken away when it was discovered that he had been paid to play minor league baseball since professional athletes were banned from the Olympics at the time. This decision was reversed in 1983, 30 years after his death, and Thorpe's medals were returned to his family. After college, Thorpe played professional football for the Canton Bulldogs, one of the top teams in the first professional league that would I become the National Football League. Thorpe excelled at nearly every position on the field, especially at kicker, and at one time both coach and played for the Bulldogs. He also played professional baseball, traveled the country with an all-star basketball team, and once won a nati ballroom dancing contest. In many surveys Thorpe has been named one of the greatest athletes of all time. Write a concluding paragraph for this paper.
