Almost 100 years after he played his last game in a Brown uniform, Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard '19 has been elected to the Professional Football Hall of Fame. He will be formally enshrined Aug. 7 in Canton, Ohio.
Pollard was selected for the Professional Football Hall of Fame on Saturday, along with quarterbacks Dan Marino, Steve Young and Bennie Friedman, who played in the NFL from 1927 to 1934.
Pollard "was a humble, small person," said Artemis Joukowsky '55 P'87, chancellor emeritus and author of "Ever True: This History of Brown Football."
"He was fast as the devil," Joukowsky said. "He could run with an incredible sense of balance. Every photo you see of him he is running practically parallel to the ground. He was able to keep his momentum going forward without falling."
Pollard was a leading part of Brown's 1916 team that played in the first annual Rose Bowl against Washington State University. Earlier that season Pollard helped lead the Bears to back-to-back wins over Yale and Harvard, a feat that had never been accomplished before by any school. Against the Bulldogs, Pollard gained 307 yards and scored one touchdown in Bruno's 21-6 victory. The next week, against the Crimson, Pollard accounted for almost half of Brown's rushing yards and scored two touchdowns. He also exhibited two-way skills, intercepting two passes in the Bears' 21-0 victory.
According to "Ever True," during his time at Brown, Pollard was described by newspapers such as the New York Globe as "the peer of any man now occupying niches in the football hall of fame." Walter Camp, who is credited with inventing modern football, called Pollard "one of the greatest backs these eyes have ever seen."
Pollard's achievements on the field were not just lauded, but officially recognized as well. After Brown's 8-1 campaign in 1916 he was named to Camp's All-American Backfield. In the 1930s Camp would again honor Pollard by naming him to his "All-Time College Dream Backfield."
After college, Pollard continued his football career, playing professionally for the Akron Pros of the American Professional Football League, which would be renamed the National Football League in 1922. He was the first black player on the Pros, who went on to win the championship in 1920 after an undefeated season. The next year he became the first black professional football head coach, serving as player-coach for Akron. He coached the Pros until 1926, then coached other NFL clubs in Indiana and Milwaukee, Wis.
In 1933, the NFL owners created an agreement that effectively banned black players from the league. In response, Pollard started the Brown Bombers, a team comprised of black stars that went around the country playing against all-white teams for three seasons starting in 1935.
The barnstorming Bombers were neither the first nor the last of Pollard's entrepreneurial achievements. While at Brown, he was known around campus as the founder of Pollard Varsity Pressing Club, a service that pressed members' shirts for $1 a month. His business was so successful that he was granted an additional room out of which to work.
After retiring from football, Pollard went on to a successful career in the private sector. He founded the first black investment firm and the first weekly black tabloid in New York City. He also founded a movie studio in Harlem and coal delivery companies in Chicago and New York.
In a time of harsh racial conflicts, recognition of Pollard's achievements was slow in coming. In August 1954, he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. He was also part of the inaugural class of the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame in 1971, and two years later was elected to the National Black Hall of Fame. After he died in 1986 at age 92, Pollard was posthumously named to Brown's 125th Anniversary All-Time Team in 2003.
In 2004, the Black Coaches Association, in concert with Brown, established the Fritz Pollard Award, which is to be given annually to the BCA's male coach of the year. The winner also receives a $10,000 prize.
