The most notable example of the savior type was Pop Warner, Jim’s coach at Carlisle. In Jim Thorpe—All-American, the 1951 movie version of his life, Thorpe (played by movie star Burt Lancaster) is the main character but Warner, who consulted on the script, is portrayed as the hero and wise man who discovered the raw athlete, molded him into a superstar, and then tried time and again in later years to save Jim from his worst impulses. The true story is less flattering. Warner was a hypocrite if not a coward. At the time of Jim’s greatest peril, when his Olympic medals were being taken from him
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