Fritz Pollard

Pollard coached Lincoln University's football team in Oxford, Pennsylvania during the 1918 to 1920 seasons [4] and served as athletic director of the school's World War I era Students' Army Training Corps.

[7] 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.

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.

[citation needed] On November 19, 1922, Pollard and Paul Robeson led the Badgers to victory over the great Jim Thorpe and his Oorang Indians.

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.

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[12] in 1956, which included such performers as Connie Carroll, The Harptones, The Five Miller Sisters, Pearl Woods,[13] Linda Hopkins, Elyce Roberts, The Hurricanes, and The Wanderers.

Pollard (left) and Paul Robeson in a photo from the March 1918 issue of The Crisis