Native American Athletes

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.

July 18, 2014

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

Native American Athletes
October 26, 2005

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.

Native American Athletes