Fritz Pollard

Athletic Coach

• Born: January 27, 1894
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: May 11, 1986
• Place of death: Silver Spring, Maryland

Sport: Football

Early Life

Born in Chicago, Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard was the seventh of the eight children of John William Pollard, an African American barber, and Catherine Amanda Hughes, a seamstress. All the Pollard children were gifted athletes. The small, quick Frederick became known as Fritz in the German and Belgian neighborhood of Rogers Park, where he grew up during a time of increasing racial discrimination. From 1908 to 1912, he showed his athletic skills at Lane Technical High School. At 5 feet 7 inches and 150 pounds, Fritz used his speed and agility to propel his relatively small frame to dazzling displays on the football field.

The Road to Excellence

During the second decade of the twentieth century, many college teams did not allow African Americans to play sports. Fritz made an effort to join the squads at such institutions as Dartmouth, Northwestern, Harvard, and Bates. In 1915, he compiled enough credits to gain admission to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. At the age of twenty-one, Fritz was already married and had a son. During the practices, Fritz faced racial taunts from his own teammates. It took some time for the freshman player to crack the starting lineup.

During the 1915 season, Fritz led the Brown team to a record of four wins, two losses, and one tie. The most notable result was an upset victory over Yale University at New Haven by a score of 3-0. The win was Brown’s second in the series, and Fritz’s punt returns and long punts kept the Yale offense at bay after Brown had taken its surprising lead. As a reward for its surprising season, Brown was selected to play in the Tournament of Roses football game in Pasadena, California, against Washington State. On a rainy field that limited Fritz’s mobility, the victory went to Washington State by a score of 14-0.

The Emerging Champion

In 1916-1917, Fritz led Brown to its best season in its history with an 8-1 record, which included victories over Harvard and Yale. Only a single loss to Colgate marred the season. In the contests against Harvard and Yale, Fritz was the outstanding performer on the field. Against the Yale Elis, Fritz’s runs set up one touchdown for the Brown Bruins, and his twisting punt return scored another. A week later against Harvard, before a crowd of thirty-two thousand fans, Brown garnered a 21-0 victory behind Fritz’s brilliant running. He scored on a 46-yard scamper to give Brown a 14-0 lead, and his 42-yard pass reception late in the game put the ball on the Harvard 3-yard line to set up the final Bruin score.

The loss to Colgate on Thanksgiving Day marred the season but could not overshadow Fritz’s dazzling achievements. The crowning honor for the Brown halfback came when coach Walter Camp named him to his first-team all-American squad as left halfback. Camp called Fritz “the most elusive back of the year or of any year.” Only one African American had been so selected previously to the annual Camp squad, and Fritz was the first African American to be placed in the backfield.

Continuing the Story

In 1917, Fritz’s career as a Brown student ended because of weak grades that made him ineligible for the upcoming football season. After a stint in the Army during World War I, he was named head coach at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he served for three years. Meanwhile, he played professional football in a league that evolved into the NFL in 1921. Fritz played for seven years in the NFL, and he and the Akron Pros won the NFL championship in 1921. Other teams for which he played included the Milwaukee Badgers and Hammond (Indiana) Pros. When he was the coach at Akron in 1921, he became the first black head coach in the NFL.

In 1926, Fritz retired as a player but continued as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks and the New York Brown Bombers. He was one of the pioneering figures among African Americans in professional football before the NFL became all-white in the years before World War II.

As a businessman in the 1940’s and 1950’s, Fritz was a successful producer of music films called “soundies” and also worked as a booking agent for black performers. His first marriage ended in divorce; he married his second wife in 1947. Fritz retired from business in the mid-1970’s and died of pneumonia in 1986.

Summary

Fritz Pollard received many well-deserved honors before his death. In 1954, he was the first African American to be named to the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame. In 1978, he was given the Whitney M. Young, Jr., Memorial Award for his contributions to African Americans in the United States. In 2005, he was finally inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Fritz was one of the most exciting football players of the first two decades of the twentieth century. Since statistics were not maintained with the same thoroughness as they were later, the best measure of Fritz’s impact was his team’s excellent win-loss record in 1916. He was the greatest athlete in the history of Brown University. At a time of racial bigotry he proved his worth on the field and devoted his life to making it easier for other African Americans to succeed in athletic competition. Fritz was a superb champion on and off the field of play.

Bibliography

Brooks, Scott, and Charles Kenyatta Ross. Race and Sport: The Struggle for Equality on and off the Field. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.

Carroll, John M. Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement. 2d ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

Goldstein, Richard. Ivy League Autumns: An Illustrated History of College Football’s Grand Old Rivalries. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Ross, Charles K. Outside the Lines: African Americans and the Integration of the National Football League. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

Willis, Chris. Old Leather: An Oral History of Early Pro Football in Ohio, 1920-1935. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2005.