enigma wrote:
Could it be possible that Halas just didn't like him for other reasons, not because he was black?
Could be Halas and Pollard just couldnt stand each other.
They rarely rode in the same bus together. And if they ever did, they were never on the same side of the bus.
They hardly ever played cards together.
Dont recall them ever shaking hands after a game.
Now, the NFL 1934-1946 thing was just a random coincidence.
I really miss toasting marshmallows at weekly cross-burnings
in the good ole days.
That was even more fun than this super bowl thing.
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Who Was Fritz Pollard?
Fritz Pollard led Brown University to the 1915 Rose Bowl and in 1920, after military service, became the first black player (along with Bobby Marshall) in what became the NFL. In 1921, he became the co-coach of the Akron Pros.
Pollard played for four different NFL teams: the Pros/Indians (1920-21/1925-26), the Milwaukee Badgers (1922), the Hammond Pros (1923, 1925), and the Providence Steam Roller (1925).
His career was cut short, however, by the fact the NFL had no black players from 1934-46. According to the 1999 book "Outside the Lines: African Americans and the Integration of the National Football League" by Charles K. Ross, Redskins owner George Preston Marshall helped coax his fellow owners, including George Halas, into accepting a color barrier similar to that which existed in baseball. The ban was never publicly articulated, though Halas once said: "The game didn't have the appeal to black players at the time."
Pollard later became a successful businessman in New York, founding the first black investment firm (F.D. Pollard and Co.) and creating the first weekly black tabloid (N.Y. Independent News).
Pollard died in 1986 at the age of 92.
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