Born in 1894 in Chicago, Pollard grew up to be an electrifying and gifted athlete. At Brown University, where he was majoring in chemistry, he played halfback on the Brown football team and then became the first Black player to compete in the Rose Bowl in 1916, dodging not only tacklers but the outright racial hostility of his opponents, fans, and even his own teammates. But his sheer talent endured and by 1920, he propelled into professional football, playing for the Akron Pros, and then a year later, becoming the NFL’s first Black head coach—decades earlier than Art Shell would do the same.
Pollard played in an era where American football predated modern offensive schemes and where brute force ruled the games. His presence in a white-dominated league was unsettling to his fellow white players and a league that was unprepared to embrace real integration of people of colour. In the late 1920s, the NFL quietly shut its doors to Black players, enforcing a de facto segregation that lasted until 1946.
But this did not deter Pollard, who instead of becoming an obscure figure in critical Black history, turned his game to business. He founded his own professional football team, the Brown Bombers, in 1935; coverage of these football games in white press was minimal to none whilst its coverage in the black press would be nearly a week old before it would reach newsstands.
Pollard was a pioneer in business, too, launching the first Black-owned newspaper—the New York Independent News—from 1935 to 1942, becoming one of the top most read Black newspapers in the country, furthering his commitment to progress. Pollard embodied the values of the American spirit, whether it be his testament to resilience, intellect, or how he was a visionary who helped lay the foundation for the sport that America holds dearly to her heart.
His history is not sung often but Pollard outran systematic barriers, and like any real winner, that’s how he won the game.