BHS Day 4: Fritz Pollard

Hi and happy Super Bowl Sunday! Each Sunday this month we'll be focusing on the accomplishments of the first Blacks in various sports. With it being Super Bowl Sunday, I wanted to talk about an unsung Black hero in football. He is often left off of the list of trailblazers who opened the door for Blacks in the sport, so I wanted to talk about him today. 

Name: Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard, 1894-1986

Profession: Football player, coach, investor and entertainment agent

Why is the Spotlight on him today? For his contributions to the sport of football and achievements in the sport

Notables:
--was the first Black quarterback in the newly-formed APFA, which later became the NFL
--was the first Black head coach in pro football and coached four teams throughout his career
--received a scholarship from the Rockefeller family to attend college
--was a three-time track champion, baseball player and running back in high school
--was the first Black person to play in the Rose Bowl in college
--organized and coached an all-Black pro football team after racial segregation forced him out of the APFA, which was successful until the Great Depression forced the team to shut down
--was the second Black player, after William Henry Lewis, to be named an All-American in college and was awarded the distinction twice
--was one of the first two Black players the APFA
--was posthumously inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005
--inadvertently inspired Walt Disney to model Mickey Mouse's movements in a cartoon after watching Pollard's theatrics at the Rose Bowl while trying to get his coach to put him back in the game
--created the first Black-owned newspaper
--created the first Black investment firm and made a point to represent Black entertainers
--faced constant racism throughout his career, both in college and in professional football, from teammates and fans
--was posthumously inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2015
--was the original namesake of what is now called The Rooney Rule in football, which promotes minority hiring in the NFL
--is the namesake of an award given out to college or pro football coaches selected by the joint efforts of the Black Coaches and Administrators and Brown University, Pollard's alma mater


Further reading links:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5


Quote of the Day: 
"It was evident in my first year at Akron in 1919 that they didn't want Blacks in there getting that money. And here I was, playing and coaching and pulling down the highest salary in pro football."