Thorpe won both the pentathlon and the decathlon, which were combinations of various track and field events--the decathlon much as it is in current track competition. Thorpe's decathlon score stood as a record for something like 20 years. But he had to return his gold medals because he'd been paid to play baseball, and back then the Olympics were strictly amateur.
Carlisle was a college for Indians, and that's where Thorpe went to school. (He was from Oklahoma.) The Carlisle football team, with Thorpe as their star, won the national championship in 1912.
He was perhaps the greatest all-around athlete of all time, and in this era of specialization, we're unlikely to ever see anyone like him again.
There's a pretty decent movie about him from the 50's, starring Burt Lancaster (who was pretty athletic himself) as Thorpe: "Jim Thorpe, All American".
