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 Gilberton Catamounts, sometimes called the Gilberton Cadamounts and the Gilberton Duck Streeters, were a 1920s-era professional football team based in Gilberton, Pennsylvania. However, the team played many of its home games in nearby Mahanoy City because Gilberton's home field, Stoddard Field, was usually flooded. The borough got its "Ducktown" nickname mainly because of persistent flooding.
The team played independently against other teams from Pennsylvania's "coal country". During the 1920s the teams based here paid large amounts of money to talented pro football players. Many players from the National Football League came to play football in this region because of the amount of money paid out. In 1924 Gilberton, under the managership of Joe Keating and James Rafferty, Gilberton acquired three new star players just days before their season opener. The team signed Ben Shaw, Cecil Grigg, and Lou Smyth. All three players were members of the Canton Bulldogs of the NFL. Ironically in 1924 the team played in the Anthracite League, which was formed to combat the out-of-control hiring of top professional football talent. It is no wonder that league folded after the 1924 season. The team later played in the Eastern League of Professional Football from 1926 until the league folded in 1927. The team had mild success on the football field. As an independent team in 1923 the team went 7-4-1. In 1924, the team went 4-3-1 in the Anthracite League. The team in 1926 in the ELPF went 5-2-2.
Pro Football Hall of Famer Fritz Pollard played with the team in 1923 and 1924. Coach Charlie Copley, a former teammate of Pollard's with the Akron Pros and the Milwaukee Badgers, recruited Pollard to play for the Catamounts. He became the first African-American to play football in the coal region.
Zagorski, Joe (1987). "Anthracite League" (PDF). PFRA Annual (8). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–5.[permanent dead link]
Gill, Bob (1989). "Other Minor League" (PDF). Coffin Corner. 11 (8). Professional Football Researchers Association: 1–5. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 27, 2010.
Carroll, John M. (1999). Fritz Pollard. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06799-1.
Peterson, Robert (1997). Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511913-4.
Books, Scott; Charles K. Ross (2005). Race and Sport. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-897-5.
Carroll, J.M. (1998). Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement. University of Illinois Press. p. 162. ISBN 9780252067990. Retrieved October 24, 2014.
"Marc's Collection of Mascots: Extinct/Dropped Mascots". halcyon.com. Retrieved October 24, 2014.
"Sorry, the page you were looking for could not be found" (PDF). Retrieved October 24, 2014.[permanent dead link]
Ross, C.K. (2005). Race and Sport: The Struggle for Equality on and Off the Field. University Press of Mississippi. p. 11. ISBN 9781578068975. Retrieved October 24, 2014.
