Path Lit by Lightning The Life of Jim Thorpe

Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe is an epic biography of what is perhaps America's greatest all-around athlete.

I loved the opening scene. I forget who wrote it but they were talking about how they they were interviewing some like 90-year-old marathon runner and all the 90-year-old marathon runner wanted to talk about was how they'd met Jim Thorpe as a young person and to me it brings home something that we often miss on these stories which is that they feel very distant to us but they still exist almost in living memory.

The injustices and the unbelievable athletic achievements of a man born in the late 1880s like it's effectively still with us.

So I kept rooting for him for something better to happen but you know some of it was you know his own human flaws you know he had trouble drinking and he wasn't home much and the first two wives divorced him because of that and his drinking and he didn't see his seven children as much as as I would have you know liked or they would have liked that's more important during their childhoods but he kept persevering he kept trying no matter what obstacles were in his way and I came to admire that but you're right I mean he wanted more than anything well I'd say two things he wanted to be a college football coach you know we got that chance once for one season with Indiana University then the head coach was fired and that was the end of that and he wanted to somehow set up some kind of a hunting lodge or fishing lodge because he loved to hunt and fish more than anything else and that never quite happened either and you know their points in his life or his writing letters and it's it's almost like Willie Lohman you know he keeps thinking that something good is going to happen there these opportunities are going to open up in Florida or Cuba or somewhere you know in Nevada and they never do.