Lewis Tewanima: Born To Run is a book about a little-known Olympian. Lewis Tewanima was a Hopi Indian, born Tsokahovi Tewanima in 1888. He lived with his family on a reservation in Second Mesa, Arizona. For twenty years the Hopi people had refused to send their children to government-sanctioned boarding schools as directed by the U.S. Government. Early one November morning in 1906, under federal decree, the U.S. Army rounded up the children and forced them to march 20 miles east to Keams Canyon where a boarding school had been previously established for Hopi children in 1887. In mid-January of 1907, the U.S. Army then marched them 110 miles to Fort Wingate, New Mexico where they boarded a train to Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, roughly 2,000 miles from home. At this school, the children were taught Christianity and the ways of western society. They were given a U.S. military uniform and not allowed to wear their Indian clothes; officials also burned their clothes. Their thick long hair was cut and they were forbidden to speak their native language. An Army sergeant gave Tsokahovi the new name Lewis. To cope with all of the changes in his life, he decided to rely on the Hopi spiritual tradition of running. In some Hopi traditional ceremonies, young men would run through the desert to far away places to find springs to fill their gourds with water and then run home. The water would be blessed by the elders and poured on the fields, symbolizing well-being for not just the Hopi people, but all mankind.

At Carlisle, Tewanima starred on the track team winning numerous distance races. He was eventually chosen in 1908 to run in his first Olympic Games in London, where he placed 9th in the marathon. In 1912, he was chosen again to attend the Summer Olympic Games in Stockholm, where he won the silver medal in the 10,000 meters, and set an American record for the event that would stand for 52 years. Finally, after six years in Carlisle, Pennsylvania he was allowed to return home to Second Mesa, Arizona where he never again competed in a race, running only for his religion. In 1954, at age 66, Tewanima was honored as a member of the All-Time U.S. Track and Field Team by the Helms Athletic Foundation. Three years later, he was inducted into the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame. Today, the Hopi Indians hold the annual Lewis Tewanima Footrace in his honor every Labor Day weekend.