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. Tony Pollard Stats, News, Bio | ESPN He's also caught 39 passes for 337 yards. Pollard waited his entire life for a second Black person to be named head coach of an NFL team. Briscoe passed for 14 touchdowns in 1968 - still a Denver Broncos record for a rookie. is tony pollard related to fritz pollard - ega69.com Kansas CIty Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes' touchdowns from his biggest games this season ahead of Sunday night's NFL Super Bowl against the. "Times got hard, he let me skip a payment here, skip a payment there and train them anyway," Tarrance said. "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.". It was evident in my first year at Akron back in 1919 that they didnt want blacks in there getting that money, Pollard said. Pollard was illegally hit during games and, if he landed on the ground, white players would pile on top of him and beat him, according to newspaper accounts. Marshall was an avowed segregationist who owned the Washington football franchise from its inception in 1932 to his death in 1969. The Fritz Pollard Association that certifies that NFL teams have complied with the Rooney Rule is also a tax exempt 501 (c) (6) organization. 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. 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. Still, many were motivated to see them by the opportunity for abuse. Pollard suffered a fractured left . There are three awards in his name at Brown and in the 1970s, when his grandson Fritz III played football there, a local shop owner refused to take his money and said: "My father took me to see your grandfather play. ), 39 receptions for 458 yards (11.7-yard avg. "My granddaddy barbequed at home," said Tarrance Pollard, Tony's father. The final was 13-0 with Robeson scoring both touchdowns in his finest pro football performance. Some 27 years before Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in baseball, Fritz Pollard was the best player for the first NFL champions in 1920. Yet, Solomon said, Black men still aren't given equal opportunity to coach the teams they, perhaps, played for. 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. Fritz Pollard: The Small Running Back Who Broke Big Barriers He proved me wrong.". 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. "If anybody had the right to be angry about the way he was treated it was my grandfather, but he never showed it," says Fritz III. As a player-coach and later a fierce private advocate for black advancement in the game, Pollard never backed down to this authority. He then went to Brown University, majoring in chemistry. By Farrell Evans. But its unlikely Zeke will get beyond 4.5 yards per carry, where he finished in 2019. this year amid mounting pressure. 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. A year ago when Pollard averaged 4.3 to Zekes 4.0, and when Pollard got a late-season start against San Francisco and ran for 69 yards and two touchdowns on just 12 carries, it was because the 49ers were injured and prepared to face Elliott. "Fans have, perhaps, noticed that after staging one of his brilliant runs for a touchdown he seeks a place of seclusion sometimes even going so far to duck underneath the stands.". Fritz Pollard, the NFL's first African-American head coach, was a true pioneer of the sport. Along with becoming the league's first African-American head coach, he also was its first African-American quarterback (1923) and first African-American to play on a championship team (1920). Be the smartest Cowboys fan. Pollard tied an NCAA record with seven kickoff returns for touchdowns. 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. "The big contrast now is absolutely how crazy big the NFL is as a business, billions and billions of dollars," he said. It was named one of the 10 best BBQ restaurants in the city of Memphis by the Travel Channel. He produced Rockin' the Blues[11] in 1956, which included such performers as Connie Carroll, The Harptones, The Five Miller Sisters, Pearl Woods,[12] Linda Hopkins, Elyce Roberts, The Hurricanes, and The Wanderers. That is a heavy, heavy workload, and if there is one thing I give head coach Mike McCarthy credit for, its understanding this. "And it's not even close.". 'Bloody Wednesdays' were the scrimmages where reserve players could challenge starters for a spot on the team. Pollard's father had been a boxer who fought professionally during the Civil War. 5 things to know about Cowboys RB Tony Pollard, including his Three years later, the National Football League hired its second black head coach, Arthur "Art" Shell of the Oakland ( California) Raiders. Dallas Cowboys RB Tony Pollard undergoes 'TightRope' surgery on ankle He registered 29 receptions for 298 yards (10.3-yard avg. He didn't get to see it. and six touchdowns. Latest on Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Pollard including news, stats, videos, highlights and more on ESPN Black players began dominatingthe NFL. He touched the ball on 16 of his 21 snaps Sunday. Hes quicker. Fritz Pollard: A Forgotten Trailblazer - nfl.com Pollard ended his playing career in 1926, aged 32. As Fritz Jr handed down his collection of memorabilia in the 1990s, Fritz III began contacting each member of the Hall of Fame's 48-person selection committee, stating his grandfather's case for inclusion. My father had taught me that I was too big to be humiliated by prejudiced whites. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC. (Story), What Happened To Ed Hochuli? The Yale supporters also turned 'Bye Bye Blackbird', a popular song of the day, into a racially abusive anthem. Pollard became the second African-American in the College Hall of Fame in 1954. Pollard got all of 13 carries and turned it into 109 yards, his second biggest day as a pro. 100 years ago, the NFL took its first baby steps in Indiana, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Fritz III gave his permission to name it the Fritz Pollard Alliance (FPA). "Sometimes I sit at home and say, 'I can't believe this,' Torria said. Solomon said. On those eight touches, Pollard has totaled 113 yards (14.1 per . But the hiring didn't break down barriers. 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. Fritz III says his grandfather felt there were two reasons why he wasn't voted into the Hall of Fame during his lifetime: George Halas and George Preston Marshall. On the train out west to Los Angeles, even black porters refused to wait on him. Updated January 24, 2023 3:22 PM. '", RELATED: Cordova High School alum Quinton Bohanna makes Dallas Cowboys 53-man roster. For now, getting to the playoffs remains the challenge for this team. The following 1920 season was the first for the American Professional Football Association - renamed the NFL in 1922 - and the Akron Pros went undefeated, outscoring their opponents 151-7. [2], Pollard accepted a football scholarship from the University of Memphis. He has amassed 1,279 scrimmage yards and 12 touchdowns while sharing load with Elliott. When owners colluded to shut black players out of the league from 1934 to 1946, Pollard used the pages of a newspaper that he started after his retirement to press for change. Pollard's wins above replacement also ranks third in the NFL, behind Jacobs and Nick Chubb. Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard was born Jan. 27, 1894. That's where he got the nickname Fritz. Tony Randall Pollard (born April 30, 1997) is an American football running back for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). Some sources indicate that Pollard also served as co-coach of the Milwaukee Badgers with Budge Garrett for part of the 1922 season. His case is typical of a process called 'racial stacking' which still influences the number of black head coaches we see today. By February 1933, there had been 13 black players in the NFL. 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. The Pollard family will now have to switch to Cowboys fans now that they have family ties with the team. USA TODAY NFL insider Mike Jones breaks down former Miami Dolphins' head coach Brian Flores' lawsuit against the NFL, Giants and Dolphins. They lost the game through lack of rest." ), 31 carries for 159 yards (5.1-yard avg.) is tony pollard related to fritz pollard - cleanworld.com 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." "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.". The same players that shunned Pollard four months earlier were now bringing him food. Subjects: Do you find this information helpful? [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. He is the sonof a despised race. The former Memphis standout is currently earning a base salary of $965,000 while carrying a cap charge of $1.131 million, via Spotrac. Then they leapt from their chairs, grabbed the waiter and proceeded to artistically maul him until he consented to wait on Pollard. He was the school's first black athlete a triple threat when it came to sports in football, track and boxing. Sometimes Pollard's team stayed in centre-field at half-time rather than run the gauntlet of going into the locker room. He played college football at Memphis, and was drafted by the Cowboys in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. [15] During Week 3 against the Miami Dolphins, Pollard posted his first career 100+-yard game as he finished with 103 rushing yards on 13 carries and a touchdown as the Cowboys won 316. 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 Pollard appears more likely for several reasons. "The NFL has one fundamental beliefabout Black coaches. He was almost always in the game -- as quarterback, running back and often doing punt returns and kickoff returns. He became a tax consultant. In 1919, he signed on to play for the Akron Pros in the American Professional Football Association, which was renamed the NFL in 1922. Fritz Pollard made history as NFL's first black coach and quarterback. Gibbons went on to describe an incident that happened atan Akron restaurant as Pollard sat with a group of teammates. "(I) didnt get mad and want tofight them. At Brown, Pollard led the Bears to their first and only Rose Bowl appearance. Aged 21, Pollard was only 5ft 8ins - small for football, even then. George Halas Bears, then called the Staleys, also claimed the title with a 10-1-2 record. The new owner of a team there had got in touch with him. He made up for it at Memphis' pro day by clocking in at a 4.37. There were four 100-yard rushers in the NFL Sunday and three of them are basically the legendary runners top fantasy picks, if you will in the game. Since Pollard got here in 2019, he has 10 runs of 20 yards or more in 203 carries about one every 20 rushing attempts. Both he and Halas were at that meeting of team owners in 1933, when Marshall pitched the idea of banning black players. "It was bad for white people to come and watch Black people who have jobs.". Then came a telegram that changed everything. Pollard's team won most of those games, said Towns. Nonetheless, in the opening week of the NFL season, there were four black head coaches, one black general manager and nine black starting quarterbacks. [3] He finished among the national leaders in kickoff return average (28.1 yards). The Pollard family tells ABC24 how it took a village to help the former Memphis Tiger achieve his dreams. That quest had also been his own - to get his father into the US Pro Football Hall of Fame. Fritz Pollard (1894-1986) - BlackPast.org Fritz Pollard, an All-America halfback from Brown University was a pro football pioneer in more ways than one. Pro Football Hall of Fame (inducted 2005), https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fritz-Pollard, Ohio History Central - Biography of Frederick D. Pollard, Pro Football Hall of Fame - Biography of Fritz Pollard, Fritz Pollard - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). 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. Instead, it's a box-checking exercise. It was really important to us as a family to get that known. Now, the power of his legacy is growing through an organisation that bears his name. Tony Pollard Is Worth the Price, and Cowboys Should Consider Paying It [5] He led the nation with a school-record 40-yard average per kickoff return (22 for 881 yards) and four returns for touchdowns. In 1923 and 1924, he served as head coach for the Hammond Pros.[2]. It's kind of weird to say, but I. Pollard asked to run the play twice more and scored two more touchdowns. Tony Pollard's fractured fibula impacts Cowboys' free agency | Fort His professional career was finally about to begin. Pollard was at the time just the sixth black pro-football player in an era when lynchings of black men by white mobs were almost a daily occurrence. ", In February 2021, Dungywrote an open letter to NFL ownersabout the league's lack of minority hires. "At certain times, we were struggling ourselves as parents, just trying to do for the kids and the family," she said. 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 . A year ago when Pollard averaged 4.3 to Zeke's 4.0, and when Pollard got a late-season start against San Francisco and ran for 69 yards and two touchdowns on just 12 carries, it was because the . "The first was Fritz Pollard. At his first game, he had to get dressed in the owner's cigar shop and was abused by his own team's fans. Days later, Pollard played in abenefit game inPittsburgh and was greeted with a hero's welcome. ", Tony Dungy, who became the first Black coach to win a Super Bowl with the Indianapolis Colts in 2006, said this month the Flores suitmight be "just the tip of the iceberg. [7] By the fall of 1920, he had begun to play for Akron, missing key Lincoln losses to Hampton (014) and Howard (042), much to the consternation of the alumni and administration. In a decade during which hundreds of African-Americans were still being lynched, he was playing a 'white man's game' when the NFL was in its brutal infancy. "My grandfather started playing pro football in 1919. Halas was the greatest foe of Black football players, Pollard told a reporter in 1971, adding that Halas helped start the ball rolling that eventually led to the barring of blacks from professional football in 1933., While Halas dismissed the notion that he was racist, he wouldnt draft a black player until 1949 when he took George Taliaferro out of Indiana, the first African American to be drafted by an NFL team.