Pro Football Historian (PFH) is a blog page written by Flint Given. Pro Football Historian or PFH is a page to inform people on prior NFL events that people might not know about. Learning about teams from the 1920s or even the first few NFL World Championships in the 1930s fascinates me. It's these kinds of events that I want to discuss in this blog. Hopefully you are interested and will continue to check up on my blogs. Check out the website at https://profootballhistorian.lovable.app/
Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard was an American professional football player and coach. In 1921, he became the first African-American head coach in the National Football League. Pollard and Bobby Marshall were the first two African-American players in the NFL in 1920. Football pioneer Walter Camp called Pollard "one of the greatest runners these eyes have ever seen."
Pollard coached Lincoln University's football team in Oxford, Pennsylvania during the 1918 to 1920 seasons and served as athletic director of the school's World War I era Students' Army Training Corps. During 1918–1919, he led the team to a victorious season defeating Howard University's Bisons 13–0 in the annual Thanksgiving classic as well as Hampton University (7–0) on November 9, 1918, and teams of military recruits at Camp Dix (19–0) on November 2, 1918, and Camp Upton (41–0). By the fall of 1920, he had begun to play for Akron, missing key Lincoln losses to Hampton (0–14) and Howard (0–42), much to the consternation of the alumni and administration. Paul Robeson was enlisted by Lincoln's alumni to coach the Thanksgiving 1920 game against Howard.
Pollard criticized Lincoln's administration, saying they had hampered his ability to coach and had refused to provide adequate travel accommodations for the team. "Prior to the Hampton game, the team was compelled to go to Hampton by boat, sleeping on the decks and under portholes," he told a reporter. "No cabins were provided, nor were they given a place to sleep after reaching Hampton. They lost the game through lack of rest." He also blamed the school for not providing the proper equipment. "I, myself, bought and paid $200 out of my pocket for football shoes for the team." He missed the 1920 Howard game, he said, because his Lincoln salary was so low that he was compelled to augment it with pay from Akron.
He played professional football with the Akron Pros, the team he would lead to the APFA championship in 1920. In 1921, he became the co-head coach of the Akron Pros, while still maintaining his roster position as running back. He also played for the Milwaukee Badgers, Hammond Pros, Gilberton Cadamounts, Union Club of Phoenixville and Providence Steam Roller. An article in the October 1, 1921 issue of the Chicago Whip newspaper stated that Pollard served as "assistant coach of the backfield men" of Northwestern University's football team.
Some sources indicate that Pollard also served as co-coach of the Milwaukee Badgers with Budge Garrett for part of the 1922 season.
On November 19, 1922, Pollard and Paul Robeson led the Badgers to victory over the great Jim Thorpe and his Oorang Indians. The final was 13–0 with Robeson scoring both touchdowns in his finest pro football performance.
Fritz also coached the Gilberton Cadamounts, a non-NFL team. In 1923 and 1924, he served as head coach for the Hammond Pros.
Pollard, along with all nine of the African American players in the NFL at the time, were removed from the league at the end of the 1926 season, never to return again. He spent some time organizing all-African American barnstorming teams, including the Chicago Black Hawks in 1928 and the Harlem Brown Bombers in the 1930s.
In the 1930s, Pollard founded his own professional football team, the Brown Bombers. The Depression ended the Brown Bombers' run in 1938, and Pollard went on to other ventures, including a talent agency, tax consulting, and film and music production. He produced Rockin' the Blues in 1956, which included such performers as Connie Carroll, The Harptones, The Five Miller Sisters, Pearl Woods, Linda Hopkins, Elyce Roberts, The Hurricanes, and The Wanderers.
Pollard also published the New York Independent News from 1935 to 1942, purportedly the first African American-owned tabloid in New York City. The war and a rivalry forced it to close. The paper's offices were on 125th Street and at its peak, the paper had a weekly circulation of approximately thirty-five thousand, ranking it among the top most read Black newspapers in the country.
Carroll, John M. (1998). Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 4. ISBN 0252067991.
Gray, LaVerne (March 1, 2022). "Naomi Willie Pollard Dobson: A Pioneering Black Librarian". Libraries: Culture, History, and Society. 6 (1): 1–20. doi:10.5325/libraries.6.1.0001. ISSN 2473-0343.
Reasons and Patrick, "Pollard Set Records as Black Football Player, Coach", The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, 1972, February 27, Section E: 5.
"Crack Lincoln University Team Coached by Fritz Pollard", Philadelphia Tribune, October 19, 1918
"Lincoln University Victor over Howard", Washington Post November 29, 1918.
"Pollard's Orange and Blue Juggernaut Crushes Camp Dix", Philadelphia Tribune, November 9, 1918.
"Lincoln Swamps Camp Upton", Chicago Defender, November 30, 1918.
"Fred Pollard Finishes as Coach for Lincoln", Chicago Defender, December 4, 1920.
"Fritz Pollard Answers Critics", Baltimore Afro-American, December 17, 1920.
"Pollard Made Asst. Coach at Northwestern". The Chicago Whip. October 1, 2021. Retrieved August 9, 2024. Pollard started his duties last Tuesday, appearing on the field in uniform
"Path Lit by Lightning" by David Maraniss
"Rockin' the Blues" – via www.imdb.com.
"Pearl Woods". Discogs.
John M. Carroll (1998). Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06799-0.
"Fritz's Fame". Brown University. Brown Alumni News. March 2005. Retrieved February 3, 2016.
"Fritz Pollard: A Forgotten Trailblazer". Retrieved May 26, 2022.
Carroll, John M. (1998). Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement. University of Illinois Press. pp. 194–196. ISBN 978-0-252-06799-0.
Dunlap, Keith (February 18, 2021). "Fritz was ritz as pioneer for Black football players". Retrieved May 26, 2022.
"03-078 (Fritz Pollard Award)". www.brown.edu.
"Jim Muldoon inducted into Rose Bowl Hall of Fame". Pac-12. Pac-12 Conference. December 30, 2015. Archived from the original on December 30, 2015. Retrieved February 3, 2016. Also inducted (was) ... Brown's Fritz Pollard (1916 Rose Bowl Game)
"Mark Brunell, Fritz Pollard, Tyrone Wheatley and Jim Muldoon to be Inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame presented by Northwestern Mutual". Tournament of Roses. Pasadena, CA. September 25, 2015. Archived from the original on October 30, 2015. Retrieved February 3, 2016.
"Alpha Athletes at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany". Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Retrieved January 10, 2010.
Brown University – Brown University and the Black Coaches Association establish annual Fritz Pollard Award February 18, 2004.
The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1902 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship (OIC). As the name implied, its teams were mostly based in Ohio. It is the direct predecessor to the modern National Football League.
A proposal to add teams from outside Ohio, such as the Latrobe Athletic Association, to form a formal league known as the "Football Association" fell through prior to the 1904 season.
Though a champion was declared by the group throughout its existence, a formal league was not founded until 1920, when several Ohio League teams added clubs from other states to form the American Professional Football Association. In 1922, the APFA became the National Football League.
All but one of the remaining Ohio League teams left the NFL after the 1926 season, with the sole remaining team, the Dayton Triangles, surviving until 1929, before moving several times and eventually ending up in Dallas, after which they were officially cancelled by the NFL, who sold the players and assets to Carroll Rosenbloom in Baltimore, where they were re-named the Colts. The team moved again in 1984 and the descendant of the Triangles franchise is ostensibly now in Indianapolis, just 117 miles to the west of their origin.
The league champions for each season were the 1902 Akron East Ends, 1903 Massillon Tigers who went 8-1-0, 1904 Massillon Tigerswho went 7-0-0, 1905 Massillon Tigers who went 10-0-0, 1906 Massillon Tigers who went 10-1-0,1907 Massillon Tigers who went 7-0-1, 1908 Akron Indians who went 8-0-1, 1909 Akron Indians who went 9-0-0, 1910 Shelby Blues and Shelby Tigers who went 14-0-1, 1911 Shelby Blues who went 10-0-0, 1912 Elyria Athletics who went 8-0-0, 1913Akron Indians who went 8-1-2, 1914 Akron Parratt's Indians who went 8-2-1. The 1915 champions has been disputed with no clear winner to this date. In 1916, the Canton Bulldogs went 9-0-1. In 1917, the Canton Bulldogswent 9-1-0. In 1918, the Dayton Triangles went 8-0-0. In 1919, the Canton Bulldogs 9-0-1.
Some of the better teams of the 1920s, who did not join the NFL existed in the Ohio Valley, and would form an unofficial but recognized circuit - The Ohio Valley League - which resembled the old Ohio League. The "league" collapsed at the beginning of the Great Depression.
The two stronger teams in the league were the Portsmouth Spartans and the Ironton Tanks, that in the year after the circuit died (1930) beat the New York Giants and Chicago Bears, while the Spartans would join the NFL and would later become the Detroit Lions. Two other noteworthy teams were the Armco Corporation employees teams - Ashland Armco Yellowjackets (Kentucky) and Middletown Armco Blues (Ohio), who featured many former college All-Americans, including Red Roberts.
The champions for the Ohio Valley League were the1925 Ironton Tanks (9-1-2), the 1926 Ironton Tanks (11-1-1), the 1927 Ashland Armco Yellowjackets (7-1-3), 1928 Ironton Tanks (7-1-3), 1929 Portsmouth Spartans (12-2-1).
In 1941, there was a resurgence in pro football in Ohio, as local teams tried to form a new professional league called The Ohio Professional Football League (also known as Ohio Valley League). Six teams came together in an attempt to restore the region's former old glory: The Dayton Dakotas, Dayton Merchants, Cincinnati Pepsi-Colas, Columbus Avondales, Middletown Merchants, and another Canadian team the Thomas Athletic Club from Windsor, Ontario,[18] but they withdrew from the league before the season started.
The circuit operated on a much smaller scale from previous leagues, and did not return for a second season. The Cincinnati Pepsi-Colas were league champions with a 7-0 record. This was the last Ohio based professional football league to date.
Massillon won by tiebreaker of common opponents. While both Massillon and the Shelby Blues went undefeated and played each other once to a scoreless tie, Shelby tied the Columbus Panhandles, while Massillon had defeated Columbus twice.
Both teams finished undefeated, but shared so many players that it was impossible to stage a true championship game. Their records were added together and the two organizations shared the title and officially merged in 1911. The Tigers name was spun off to another team.
While Akron is traditionally listed as champions, the Dayton Cadets won the Southern Division title with an undefeated record. Akron and Dayton never faced each other.
The Professional Football Researchers Association lists 1915 as "no clear champion" and discounts the Youngstown Patricians, the only undefeated team that year, as having a subpar schedule. Canton and Massillon, the next two contenders, tied at 5-2-2.
"the Ohio Valley in 1924" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on September 15, 2015.
"Thorpe's Farewell Season" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on September 7, 2015.
Bob Gill, with Tod Maher. Outsiders II: Minor League And Independent Football, 1951-1985, St. Johann Press, 2010. ISBN 1878282654
"The "Famous" Ironton Tanks" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on September 7, 2015.
"1930 Ironton Tanks".
"Armco Semi-Pro Football Teams 1924-1929". 2 September 2019.
"Armco's Semi-Pro Football Teams" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on June 10, 2021.
"1925 Ironton Tanks".
"1926 Ironton Tanks".
"1927 Ashland Armcos".
"1928 Ironton Tanks".
"1929 Portsmouth Spartans".
"Dakotas to Stand Pat On Lineup". The Journal Herald. October 10, 1941. Retrieved May 5, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
"2 Dayton Teams In New Pro Football Circuit". Dayton Daily News. September 21, 1941. Retrieved May 5, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
