Fritz Pollard
Fritz Pollard was born Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard in Chicago, Illinois on January 27, 1894. He grew up in Rogers Park, a largely White suburb of Chicago. Young Fritz experienced racism first hand and learned from his family how to pick his battles and subdue his emotions in order to achieve his goals in a predominantly white world. In high school he was an all-around athlete, excelling as a running back, a three-time Cook County track champion, and a talented baseball player.
He received a scholarship from the Rockefeller family to play for Brown University in 1915. As a freshman, he led the 5-3-1 Brown team to the Rose Bowl vs. Washington State after Syracuse bowed out in 1915. They lost to the Cougars 14-0. Pollard had become the first Black player in Rose Bowl history. That same year became the second Black college football player to be named an All-American (behind William Henry Lewis, who received the honor twice in 1892 and 1893 while attending Harvard University). The trip to Pasedena was not without challenges. Pollard was refused service by the porters of the Pullman train car which carried his teammates across country. The hotel the team was staying at in California even refused to give a room to Pollard. It wasn’t until an assistant coach threatened to remove the entire Brown team that the hotel acquiesced and let him stay.
Fritz was also named to Walter Camp’s All America Team, and was the first African American in Camp’s backfield. Nicknamed “the human torpedo,” Pollard had almost single-handedly defeated Yale and Harvard (Brown’s first win over the Crimson) in 1916. In that sophomore year he led Brown to a 8-1 record with 12 touchdowns. Once Pollard left Brown, he momentarily pursued a degree in dentistry, worked as a director for an Army YMCA, and coached football at Lincoln University. It’s important to note major college football stars back then weren’t guaranteed a chance at professional football stardom.
As a professional player, Pollard would go on to break other barriers. He turned pro in 1919, when he joined the Akron (OH) Pros following army service during World War I. In 1920, the Pros joined the newly founded American Professional Football Association, later renamed the National Football League. That season, with Pollard leading the charge, the Pros went undefeated (8-0-3) to win the league’s first crown. Pollard and Bobby Marshall were the only two Black players in the NFL in 1920. As a professional player, Pollard immediately earned a place in pro football history as one of only two African Americans in the new league.
Football experts indicate that Pollard was the most feared running back in the game. In 1923, while playing for the Hammond Pros, he became the first Black quarterback in the league. He was the first Black head coach in the National Football League (NFL), when he was named Akron’s player-coach. During his pro football career the two-time All-America played and sometimes coached for four different NFL teams, the Pros/Indians (1920-21/1925-26), the Milwaukee Badgers (1922), the Hammond Pros (1923, 1925), and the Providence Steam Roller (1925).
At 5-foot-9 and 165 pounds, while playing in an era long before football became a passing game, Pollard’s speed and athleticism made him a natural halfback. When he signed with the Hammond Pros in 1923, he became the team’s signal-caller, marking a new era in the young history of the NFL as the league’s first Black quarterback. He also served as head coach for the Hammond Pros. Pollard continued to play and coach in the NFL until 1926. The following year, there were no Black players in pro football. Pollard, along with all nine of the Black players in the NFL at the time, were removed from the league at the end of the 1926 season.
Pollard was trying to advance achievement by African Americans in the sport and demonstrate that they were worthy of participating in the professional game. This was at a time when the NFL owners were keeping African Americans out of the league in a “gentleman’s agreement” from 1934 to 1945. It wasn’t until 1946, that the NFL allowed Black players in the league. In 1928, Pollard organized and coached an all-African American professional football team called the Chicago Black Hawks. Pollard’s Black Hawks played against White teams around Chicago, but enjoyed their greatest success by scheduling exhibition games against West Coast teams during the winter months.
In 1937, Fritz Pollard retired from pro football and pursued a career in business. Pollard entered the business world and founded the first Black investment firm and would go on to be an agent who represented Black entertainers. Football pioneer Walter Camp called Pollard “one of the greatest runners these eyes have ever seen“. In 1954 Pollard became the second Black player (behind Duke Slater of Iowa from 1918-1921), selected to the College Football Hall of Fame. He was posthumously inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005 (he should have been in the inaugural class of 1963). Fritz Pollard was a pioneering African American player and coach in both collegiate and professional football.