re: Could Jim Thorpe have played professional sports if he was 25 today?

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Jim Brown would have only been an average back in today's game..



Stupid is as STUPID does.....

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I think it's unfair to say he'd be "average" today but a couple of points to consider.

Everyone in this thread pointing out that really, humans haven't changed much in recent years, it's nutrition/training methods that have changed.

That said, what nutrition/training methods has done is expand the number of freaks. Brown was an athletic freak but in his time, the guys he was playing against were much smaller and, there were few of them on his level. Defenses then had few guys who could match up physically with Brown. he could run half the dudes flat the frick over. That would certainly happen less today due to the sheer size change since Brown's time.

To me, that's the major factor between now and 40 years ago when it comes to elite athletes. The elite dudes then were in fact studs but, they were studs who enjoyed a much more substantial gap between them and the next level than they'd enjoy today.

Alright, here we go.....all distances from LF to RF

Commiskey-363...382...420...460...382...363

League Park-375..415..420..460...317...290

Briggs-340...365..440..370..325

Shibe-334....468...331

Sportsman's-351..379..426..354..310

Griffith-388..360..421..373...320

Yankee-330..402..460..490..429..296

Fenway-321..488(cf).430..420..400..313

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Ruth was born in 1895 and was 6'2 215 before he got heavy. Josh Gibson was born in 1911 and was 6'1 210. That was massive back then. Do you really think these two would have been the same size if they were born 100 years later? Forget the nutrition and training part, they would have been monsters. But I am subjected to people saying how much bigger and stronger today's players were, I wonder how big LeBron would have been if he were born in 1895?

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Finally someone who gets it. The freaks from the days of yore (eg. Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Wilt Chamberlain, Jim Brown, etc.) would have been bigger and stronger versions themselves if the had been born 25 years ago. And the freaks of today (eg. Lebron James, Calvin Johnson, Usain Bolt, etc.) would have been smaller freaks if they had been born 100 years ago. I don't understand why some people seem to believe that some people are immune from the effects of improved nutrition, medicine and training.

Lets face it.

Jim Thorpe appeared in the early days of modern sport...that was wildly exclusive to whites.

Which is why CFB until the 1950's and 1970's (for Southern States) is pretty lame touting titles...(see Bama for reference).

Thorpe was Welsh, Irish, African and Native American.

Tremendous athlete for his time when basically rich nations were only competing in the Olympics for titles and only blue-blood Ivy kids were competing in CFB (for all the marbles).

It's not that humans have evolved so much in 100 years... (that's ridiculous) and the previous poster made a great point.

It's that access is 100X greater now to sports...along with training and weight training.

A closed country-club athletic landscape opened its doors years later. Thorpe was able to smash the country-club door at that time due t promotion of Carlisle Indian School and efforts to fund Native American assimilation.

No one cared to that degree about black athletes who at that time...HBCs...were not in full force...and that athletic landscape was still cut off from them.

Native Americans were for years renowned runners in American sports...highly sought after for most of the century by colleges...before the sport evolved...(and see Billy Mills story and history of recruiting track athletes for colleges pre-1960).

Most of sports records before 1960 and 1970 in Southern parts (especially football) in the nation are a result of "white privilege" and gaming results for SEC schools so to speak - whites playing against whites while others like in the Big 10 and Pac-8 were playing against black players for a long time...(see Jackie Robinson).

You need to know your history and your competition. Those change. And at one time...the best competition in football allowed the best athletes to play...that was the Big10 and Pac-8...and was not the SEC. They were regarded as second-class football by the national media until the late-70's.

And when Thorpe dominated...he was facing second-class competition like most...

Would Owens be dominant today? No.

He was one of the few who were let into the controlled sporting white world and dominated.

Thorpe was a fore-bearer and benefited from being one of the early athletes to compete against guys who weren't on his level - (guys who were on his level - weren't allowed to compete...or weren't promoted and supported for the opportunity).