Wisconsin's Carlisle Indian School Immortals continues the series on Native American sports heroes that is of interest to readers from 7th grade to senior citizen, particularly those from Wisconsin. This volume follows the lives of 17 players both on and off the reservation. Many of them made significant contributions to football after their playing days were over as coaches, but their greatest contributions were in other fields. This is not a sports book although its protagonists were athletes.

Find out which Indian artist played a pivotal role in establishing the Rose Bowl and who is as controversial today as when he was alive, who led an all-Indian band and advertised Conn Instruments, who was selected to accompany Richard Byrd on his Second Antarctic Expedition, which Carlisle Indian pioneered the role of athletic trainer beginning when he was still a student at Carlisle, and who became doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs for real.

Other than for Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner, the accomplishments of the Carlisle Indian School football teams are largely forgotten. Although these teams were legendary in their own time, they are now virtually unknown except to the most ardent football historians. Their contributions to the game were substantial and deserve to be remembered. Six Carlisle Indians are in the College Football Hall of Fame (not bad for a program that played its last game in 1917) and helped get Pop Warner, their coach, inducted. "Oklahoma's Carlisle Indian School Immortals" begins a series on Native American sports heroes that will be of interest to readers from 7th grade to senior citizen, particularly those from Oklahoma. This volume follows the lives of 15 players both on and off the reservation. Many of them made significant contributions to football after their playing days were over as coaches, but their greatest contributions were in other fields. This is not a sports book although its protagonists were athletes.

Other than for Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner, the Carlisle Indian School football teams are largely forgotten. Although these teams were legendary in their own time, they are now virtually unknown except to the most ardent football historians. The Indians' contributions to the game were substantial and deserve to be remembered today. Six Carlisle Indians have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame (not bad for a program that played its last game in 1917) and helped get Pop Warner, their coach, inducted as a charter member alongside Jim Thorpe.

In Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Tom Benjey expanded the scope of his previous work, Keep A-Goin': The Life of Lone Star Dietz, to explore the lives of not just one of the Carlisle Indian School football immortals but the core group of men -- more than 50 all told -- who helped create the sport, both amateur and professional, we enjoy today. The issue for the Carlisle students of the competing visions of mainstreaming versus cultural retention for Native Americans in this country is one that Dr. Benjey explores in detail, the validities of which are still debated a century later. During the past three decades, a plethora of books have been written about the Carlisle team. In my opinion, none of them can match the exhaustive research, attention to detail and, most importantly, the accuracy of Dr. Benjey's book. The most sophisticated and learned historians, sociologists and anthropologists, rabid sports fans or casual readers will be enthralled by his compelling style and thrilled by the many factual treasures he has uncovered. Robert W. Wheeler, author of Jim Thorpe: World's Greatest Athlete