He attended Albert G. Lane Manual Training High School in Chicago where he played football, baseballand ran track. He founded a newspaper, and set up an investment fund and a company trading coal. . Pollard then signed with the NFL's Akron Pros, whom he led to a championship in his rookie season. And maybe this will simply be like 2006, when it was clear all season that Marion Barber was more productive than Julius Jones, when Barber scored 10 more touchdowns and averaged almost a yard per carry more than Jones but Barber never started until the team got into the playoffs. Aged 21, Pollard was only 5ft 8ins - small for football, even then. (I'd) just look at themand grin, and the next minute run 80 yards for a touchdown.". "Prior to the Hampton game, the team was compelled to go to Hampton by boat, sleeping on the decks and under portholes," he told a reporter. "That's the only way you can come in," Torria Pollard, the mother of Dallas running back Tony Pollard, said with a laugh. The opposing teams gave me hell too.". Carolinas Christian McCaffrey is the only back ranked in the top 15 also averaging fewer than four yards per carry. He played and coached when, despite being the highest paid player in the league $1,500 a game he wasn't allowed to dresswith his team. "But I'm not," he said. Pollard played halfback on the Brown football team, which went to the 1916 Rose Bowl. Pollard felt that he never received the credit or recognition for his contributions to the early years of the NFL. [20] Overall, he appeared in all 16 games, of which he started two, in the 2020 season. [27], Last edited on 27 February 2023, at 01:13, "Tony Pollard, Memphis , All Purpose Back", "Prep insider: All-district 16-AAA football teams", "Tony Pollard is AAC special teams player of the year; Five other Tigers earn all-conference honors", "2017 American Athletic Conference Football Postseason Honors", "Birmingham Bowl - Memphis vs Wake Forest Box Score, December 22, 2018", "Tony Pollard 2018 University of Memphis", "Memphis football's Tony Pollard declares for the NFL Draft", "Memphis' Tony Pollard added to Senior Bowl Roster", "Tony Pollard Draft and Combine Prospect Profile", "Tony Pollard, Memphis, WR, 2019 NFL Draft Scout, NCAA College Football", "New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys September 8th, 2019", "Prescott, Cowboys get out of funk, ease past Dolphins 316", "Cowboys render coin toss mix-up moot, throttle Rams 4421", "2020 Dallas Cowboys Statistics & Players", "San Francisco 49ers at Dallas Cowboys December 20th, 2020", "Dallas Cowboys at Los Angeles Chargers - September 19th, 2021", "New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys - October 10th, 2021", "2022 NFL season, Week 5: What We Learned from Sunday's games", "Updates: Tony Pollard Wins Weekly RB Award", "Cowboys RB Tony Pollard, Chiefs TE Travis Kelce highlight Players of the Week", "Source: RB Pollard undergoes surgery for ankle", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tony_Pollard_(American_football)&oldid=1141830404, This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 01:13. USA TODAY NFL insider Mike Jones breaks down former Miami Dolphins' head coach Brian Flores' lawsuit against the NFL, Giants and Dolphins. In 1916 Pollards outstanding play led Brown to a season of eight victories and one defeat, including wins over both Yale and Harvard. Pollard attended Albert G. Lane Manual Training High School in Chicago, also known as "Lane Tech," where he played football, baseball, and ran track. He managed the Suntan Movie Studio in Harlem. Many know that Pollard suffered from food poising at the NFL combine. "If you think about everything Pollard fought for,this is the same thing we are fighting today," he said. With the US in the depths of the Great Depression and millions of white people unemployed, he argued that paying black men to play football would be bad for business. Updated January 24, 2023 3:22 PM. I never saw him angry.". And believe us, Fritz got some service after that.". Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Are we to believe that youre really doing exhaustive searches, trying to uncover the best coaches, but only two out of the last 20 have been African Americans?". After his playing career, he'd moved to New York with the Harlem Renaissance still in full swing and had become a talent agent, booking black entertainers for films and white nightclubs. 128th overall selection in the 2019 NFL Draft, Pollard finds himself in the midst of an ever-important contract year. Solomon said. Along with becoming the league's first African-American head coach, he also was its first. "And the other big difference is that 70% of the players are Black.". That's where he got the nickname Fritz. [25] In Week 11, Pollard had 80 rushing yards, and six catches for 109 yards and two touchdowns in a 40-3 win over the Vikings, earning NFC Offensive Player of the Week. Pollard continued to play and coach in the NFL until 1926. and 30 carries for 230 yards (7.7-yard avg.) He finished with 101 carries for 435 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns to go along with 28 receptions for 193 receiving yards and one receiving touchdown. He also founded an all-black football team in Harlem that was unsuccessful in luring local NFL teams to play exhibition games. Watch quarterback Jalen Hurts' best plays from his biggest games for the Philadelphia Eagles as he prepares to face the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday's Super Bowl. In his freshman year, he was the only black player in the Ivy League and Brown's win over Yale saw them earn an invite to the Rose Bowl in January 1916. Instead, it's a box-checking exercise. The Dallas Cowboys selectedTony Pollard in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC. Halas was involved with the Chicago Bears from their creation in 1920 until his death in 1983, first as a player, then coach and team owner. The next year, he was named co-head coach as he continued to play for the Pros. Fritz Pollard, an All-America halfback from Brown University was a pro football pioneer in more ways than one. Pollard, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, died in 1986. But McCarthy has said the team will be careful with Elliotts carries because they need him at the end of the year. Yet after he retired, the doors he forced open were slammed shut by a 'gentleman's agreement' that saw African-Americans banned from 1934 until 1946. The Kansas City Chiefs will face the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 57 on Sunday, 12 February - where is it being played and how to follow on the BBC. In 1923, while playing for the Hammond Pros, he became the first African American quarterback in the league. Courtesy of Brown University, Providence, R.I. (1894-1986). During 19181919, he led the team to a victorious season defeating Howard University's Bisons 130[5] in the annual Thanksgiving classic as well as Hampton University (70) on November 9, 1918, and teams of military recruits at Camp Dix (190) on November 2, 1918,[6] and Camp Upton (410). It was a German-immigrant part of town. I'd rather watch him do it.". This wasn't the first time the team had encountered such prejudice. [17] Overall, in his rookie season, he finished with 86 carries for 455 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns to go along with 15 receptions for 107 receiving yards and one receiving touchdown. "All of us got played by the NFL," he said. They were the suburb's only black family. It was really important to us as a family to get that known. degree on Pollard, recognizing his achievements as athlete and leader. As he walked on, he wouldheartaunts shouted from the stands. Coming out of the Reconstruction era which followed the American Civil War, the Pollards wanted to live free from the racial oppression of segregation laws in the south and had moved from Oklahoma in 1886. A century later, some say his coaching experience in the league mirrors today's NFL. He coached and managed all-black teams in exhibition games, giving them a chance to showcase their talent. He could do everything - he played on offence and defence. He never played quarterback again. Alternate titles: Frederick Douglass Pollard, Sr. Regents Professor of History at Lamar University. This year, the NFL is celebrating its 100th season and a heritage that began when 11 teams met on Aug. 20, 1920, in Canton, Ohio, to form the American Professional Football Association. According to Sports Info Solutions, only Josh Jacobs and Aaron Jones have a higher EPA generated per rushing attempt than Pollard. The play that ended Tony Pollard's postseason had huge ramifications on the Cowboys offense in . It is remarkable to watch the hoops that people will jump through, the injuries they will risk to avoid stating the rather obvious fact that Tony Pollard is a better runner than Ezekiel Elliott. "Offensive co-ordinators tend to come from quarterbacks, and head coaches from offensive co-ordinators, so the pipeline is thin for African-Americans because of discrimination against black players in so-called 'thinking' positions.". Pollard felt Halas held a personal grudge going back to when they were high school sports rivals in Chicago, and that he also played a prominent role in the ban being approved. Jan 12, 2023. (Complete Story), The Life And Career Of NFL Co-Founder Carl Storck (Story), The Life And Career Of Jim Thorpe (Complete Story), Top 20 Most Underrated Coaches In NFL History (Complete List), The Life And Career Of QB Jim Plunkett (Complete Story), The Life And Career Of Deion Sanders (Complete Story). His three older brothers all played the game and felt black players could do well - if they adhered to an unwritten code of conduct. The Fritz Pollard Alliance was in 2016 one of the first to support Colin Kaepernick, another black quarterback who has had to wait for the significance of his deeds to be acknowledged by his sport. [8], Pollard criticized Lincoln's administration, saying they had hampered his ability to coach and had refused to provide adequate travel accommodations for the team. Get the latest news. In 2005, Fritz Pollard was posthumously inducted into the, In 2015, Pollard was posthumously inducted into the, This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 22:16. Teams would take kick-offs short, so that Pollard could be gang-tackled as soon as he received the ball. He was the seventh of eight children born to a Native American mother and an African American father. And they would state this as if it were simply true, end of story. His brother Terrion now carries on the family tradition, working with his dad at Pollard's. As a native American, Thorpe had battled racial prejudice to become a multi-sport star, winning golds in decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics. Is Dallas becoming unaffordable due to rising housing costs, inflation and stagnating pay? [13] Pollard also published the New York Independent News from 1935 to 1942, purportedly the first African American-owned tabloid in New York City.[14]. ", "I will never tell a child again to sit down. In 1920, the leagues inaugural season, when there was no playoff and the champion was determined by its win-loss record, Pollards Pros went 8-0-3 and took the title. Pollard asked to run the play twice more and scored two more touchdowns. It doesn't force any teamto hire a Black head coach. Additionally, Pollard ranks ninth in positive EPA play percentage, meaning he is . [11], Pollard was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the fourth round (128th overall) in the 2019 NFL Draft. In 1919, as more than 25 race riots erupted in major U.S. cities, Fritz Pollard, a former Brown University All-American running back, joined the Akron Pros, a pro football team . Many credit Pollard and Jim Thorpe with saving the fledgling league as it struggled to compete with baseball and boxing. After going on to play and coach for four different NFL teams in Indiana and Milwaukee, Pollard was banned from the league in 1926 along with eight or nine other Black players "in a fateful decision to segregate," according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "The narrative we are dealing with here is very close to the narrative FritzPollard dealtwith 100 years ago.". There have been500 head coaches in the NFL's history 24 of them have been Black. During high school Pollard was actually a better baseball player, but he knew he wouldn't be able to progress. Bothered by an upset stomach, the running back ran a 4.52 40-yard dash at the combine, which was a slow time for him. "What Pollard would have said is that at least 70%of coaches would be Black," Solomon said. RELATED: Defense leads the way in Memphis' 44-34 win over North Texas. Speaking of food, the running back's family owns a restaurant called "Pollard's BBQ" located in Memphis. That'sjust the way the times were back then," Pollard would say. Pollard waited his entire life for a second Black person to be named head coach of an NFL team. And it wont be a surprise if Pollard stays above 5.0 all season. AKA: Sharon K Fritz, Sharon Fritz-Pollard, Sharon K Pollard. Pollard established theNew York Independent News, the first weekly black tabloid. [23], In Week 5, against the Los Angeles Rams, Pollard had a 57-yard rushing touchdown. American football was different. The Pollard family will now have to switch to Cowboys fans now that they have family ties with the team. "Fritz Pollards skin is black. He continued to promote the integration of more black players. He made up for it at Memphis' pro day by clocking in at a 4.37. A memorial for Marshall outside Washington's stadium was removed in June, along with all other references to him, after it was spray-painted with the words "change the name". He was the son of Fritz Pollard Sr., who also held a few "first" designations, one of which was . 3:09. "My students know I get so mad at them if they call themselves 'stupid'. Reasons and Patrick, "Pollard Set Records as Black Football Player, Coach". "He's the one that taught everybody how to barbeque.". By the time the NFL's second black head coach was appointed in 1989, Pollard, who died in 1986, had long been written out of the history books. "It's terribly ironic that we live in a time that Fritz Pollard's own coaching experience in the NFL isn't really that different from today," said Aron Solomon, chief legal analyst with Today's Esquire, which provides comprehensive legal analysis on news stories of the day. Three years later, the National Football League hired its second black head coach, Arthur "Art" Shell of the Oakland ( California) Raiders. When the Los Angeles Raiders hired Art Shell as head coach in 1989, he was asked in a live broadcast how it felt to be the NFL's first black coach. But I was there to play football. When the clerk refused, Sprackling pounded on the desk bell and shouted, "If there isn't a room for Fritz Pollard, none of us wants one." Pollard wanted the same thing. Yet, Pollard's humble, quiet ways never changed. Its possible the head coach simply believes that. January 26, 2023 11:18 am CT. ", In February 2021, Dungywrote an open letter to NFL ownersabout the league's lack of minority hires. It wasan incredible display of solidarity. Eventually the hotel relented. Tony Pollard Is a Special Runner. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). His is a story for too long left untold. He is the sonof a despised race. All the while, he faced death threats from students and opposing teams. "When he was six years old, he said 'Mom, I'm going to the NFL.' Given all that we have seen, its a safe bet the winning wont continue forever for this club. In 1981 Brown University conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) In 1937, Fritz Pollard retired from pro football and pursued a career in business. Pollard was born on Feb. 18, 1915, in Springfield, Mass. "You couldn't eat in the restaurants or stay in the hotels," Pollard told the New York Times in 1978. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. The final was 13-0 with Robeson scoring both touchdowns in his finest pro football performance. He subsequently became the first black running back to ever be selected for the All-American team. As ESPN's Bill Barnwell noted, Pollard has now touched the ball just eight times in his career after his 30th snap of a given game. The restaurant comes highly rated, too. They believe that Black head coaches are not fit to be leaders of men.". Only 5 feet 7 inches (1.7 metres) and 150 pounds (68 kg), Pollard won the grudging acceptance of his teammates at Brown University in Rhode Island in 1915, leading the team to a victory over Yale and an invitation to the Tournament of Roses game in Pasadena, California. After escaping slavery, he had fought for the Union during the Civil War. That achievement speaks volumes, because like Dallas, Memphis is known for some good BBQ. Pollard played short stints of football for Northwestern, Harvard and Dartmouth before receiving a scholarship from the Rockefeller family to attend Brown University in 1915. Read about our approach to external linking. FRISCO, Texas At the age of 14, Tony Pollard started flipping burgers at his family's famous restaurant, Pollard's Bar-B-Que on Elvis Presley Boulevard, in Memphis, Tenn . . [18], Pollard continued his role as a backup to Ezekiel Elliott to go along with some kickoff return duties in the 2020 season. Fritz Pollard was born in Chicago in 1894, the seventh of eight children. Hes quicker. Pollard took the matter into his own hands and created an all-Black football team, the Chicago Black Hawks, in 1928, challengingNFL teams to exhibition games. Imagine NFL stars of today like Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson having to arrive moments before kick-off and being driven on to the field. If he is tackled, as many as possible pile on him. In Akron, Pollard became the first black head coach and quarterback in the NFL and the most vocal advocate for black players in the formative years of the league. Bleacher crowds and outside towns jeerhim and taunthim about his color," read anarticle in the Akron Evening Times December 5, 1920. "For Brown, The Wrong Shoe Was On The Foot In The '16 Rose Bowl Game," by Frank Bianco (Nov. 24, 1980), More Black History Month Pioneers:* Florence Griffith Joyner Smashed Records and Stereotypes* Remembering Satchel Paige, Maybe The Best Pitcher To Ever Live* Paul Robeson Was America's Quintessential Renaissance Man, 2023 ABG-SI LLC. Your email address will not be published. He was almost always in the game -- as quarterback, running back and often doing punt returns and kickoff returns. His professional career was finally about to begin. In the 1930s, Pollard founded his own professional football team, the Brown Bombers. "He literally kept the NFL from folding," Towns said. "You just lived with it. Fritz Pollard Jr suffered from Alzheimer's during the final years of his life, but just before he died there was a moment of clarity. I had to duck the rocks and the fellas trying to hurt me.". Both he and Halas were at that meeting of team owners in 1933, when Marshall pitched the idea of banning black players. But on Thursday night at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, as a sign of how far things have come since Pollards day, 70 percent of the players on the active rosters of the Bears and Packers were black, a statistic that mirrors the dominant presence of blacks on the field in a league that had $8.78 billion in revenue in 2018. He spent some time organizing all-African American barnstorming teams, including the Chicago Black Hawks in 1928 and the Harlem Brown Bombers in the 1930s. It was Halas, who in 1922, suggested to the other owners that the name of the league be changed from the American Professional Football Association to the National Football League. Pollard himself was now in the factory town of Akron, Ohio. Pollard's magic on the field created a following for the NFL. Im wondering what it will be this week after Elliott was good against the Chargers and Pollard was great. "And it has been discouraging to see that in the last three hiring cycles of head coaches, things have not been much different. Are you an NFL rookie? There was one Black head coach in the NFL in 1921 when a tiny, incrediblyfast running back named Fritz Pollard was hired to coach theAkron Pros at the same time he played for the team. [4], As a sophomore, he posted 36 receptions for 536 yards (14.9-yard avg.) Born Frederick Douglass Pollard in 1894 - after the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass - his nickname Fritz reflected Rogers Park's predominantly German make-up. Since that letter, Dungy says"not a lot has changed. Fritz Pollard, an All-America halfback from Brown University was a pro football pioneer in more ways than one. "The first was Fritz Pollard. For now, getting to the playoffs remains the challenge for this team. When he showed up for football practice that September, none of the players wanted him on the team. Nonetheless, in the opening week of the NFL season, there were four black head coaches, one black general manager and nine black starting quarterbacks. At his first game, he had to get dressed in the owner's cigar shop and was abused by his own team's fans. A standout athlete at Brown University, Pollard also qualified for the 1916 Olympics in Berlin for the low hurdles, but the games were cancelled after the outbreak of World War I. He was a theater agent, booking African-Americans in clubs across New York City. When he began playing football aged 15 in 1909, he measured 4ft 11ins and weighed 89 pounds. All Rights Reserved. Is Dallas becoming unaffordable due to rising housing costs, inflation and stagnating pay? None of this is meant to discredit Elliott. He retired from football in 1937 to pursue a career in business and watched as the NFL ban on Black players started to lift after World War II. His Black fans "were so wild over having him in their midst that they arranged a parade and met him at the railroad depot," wrote Gibbons. Lets just make sure no one ever wrings their hands about Pollard taking carries away from Zeke. He played college football at Memphis, and was drafted by the Cowboys in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. [2], Pollard accepted a football scholarship from the University of Memphis. Pollard coached Lincoln University's football team in Oxford, Pennsylvania during the 1918 to 1920 seasons [4] and served as athletic director of the school's World War I era Students' Army Training Corps. Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard was born on January 27, 1894 in Chicago. He left Memphis as one of the most accomplish kick returners in NCAA history. Both men are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. He was so swift and agile that even those who scoffed -- and worse -- at a Black player, couldn't help but cheer when he ran for three50-yard touchdowns in one game. Pollard wouldn't have to dodge the spotlight for long. Fritz III's daughter Meredith Kaye Russell, born in 1988, also joined the cause, helping with research and acting as her father's secretary. He wasn't just a star football player and coach. "My dad was a single parent, and when he wasn't working all the hours he did it was phone call after phone call, meeting after meeting, trying to get my great-grandfather's name out there.". Tony Randall Pollard (born April 30, 1997) is an American football running back for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). Ultimately, the Pros prevailed on the strength of their won-loss percentage and the quality of their opponents, but the controversy sharpened a simmering feud between Halas and Pollard over competing narratives of the formative years of the NFL. 3: See photos from DeSoto's Class 6A state semifinal win over Pearland, A day after powerful thunderstorms, North Texas surveys the damage, 3 children killed, 2 wounded at Ellis County home; suspect in custody, How a Texas districts reaction to school shooting fears highlights discipline concerns, Carrollton man advertised pills on social media to entice teens to buy fentanyl, feds say. Pollard underwent surgery. Author of. Omissions? "He was at a game and they thought he was a mascot because he was so tiny," she said. In 1921, Pollard was made player-coach and finished as the league's top scorer. Still, many were motivated to see them by the opportunity for abuse. Pollard was one of the first two along with Bobby Marshall African-Americans in the National Football League in 1920. this year amid mounting pressure. I didnt go sniffing around hoping theyd accept me. In 1919, as more than 25 race riots erupted in major U.S. cities, Fritz Pollard, a former Brown University All-American running back, joined the Akron Pros, a pro football team that would later become a charter member of the NFL. Pollard was small, even for. It's cheaper. Fritz Pollard, byname of Frederick Douglass Pollard, Sr., (born January 27, 1894, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.died May 11, 1986, Silver Spring, Maryland), pioneering African American player and coach in American collegiate and professional gridiron football.
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