James (Jim) Francis Thorpe was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. He was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, and the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football (collegiate and professional), professional baseball, and basketball. He lost his Olympic titles after it was discovered he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, in violation of the amateurism rules then in place. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals. Thorpe died of heart failure on March 28, 1953 at the age of 65