The Achievement

In 1920, the American Professional Football Association held its first season. The league, which would rename itself the National Football League two years later, featured a 5-foot-8 running back named Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard playing for the Akron Pros. He was the only Black player on the field.

By 1921, Pollard had become co-head coach of the Akron Pros alongside Elgie Tobin, making him the first Black person to coach a professional football team in what would become the NFL. He held both roles simultaneously: calling plays from the sideline and then running them on the field.

These achievements happened 27 years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball. Yet for most of football history, almost nobody talked about Fritz Pollard.

Before the Pros: Brown University and the Rose Bowl

Pollard's football career started long before professional leagues existed. After brief stints at several schools, he enrolled at Brown University in 1915. At Brown, he became only the second Black player to be named a first-team All-American, joining William Henry Lewis of Harvard (1892).

In January 1916, Pollard led Brown to the Rose Bowl against Washington State. He was the first Black player to appear in the Rose Bowl. Brown lost 14-0, but Pollard's performance made him one of the most talked-about college players in the country.

His time at Brown was not easy. Hotels refused him rooms during road games. Opposing players targeted him with dirty hits and racial slurs. Fans threw objects at him from the stands. Pollard dealt with all of this while maintaining a level of play that made him impossible to ignore.

The Early NFL Years

When the APFA formed in 1920, professional football was disorganized and barely profitable. Teams played in small stadiums, schedules were inconsistent, and players often suited up for multiple teams in a single season. Into this chaos stepped Pollard, who joined the Akron Pros and immediately became one of the team's best players.

Akron went 8-0-3 in that first season and was declared league champions. Pollard's speed and elusiveness made him a star, but his presence drew hostility. Road games were dangerous. In some cities, police escorts walked him to and from the field. Opposing players openly tried to injure him.

Pollard played in the league through 1926, spending time with the Akron Pros, Milwaukee Badgers, Hammond Pros, and Providence Steam Roller. He also served as head coach for multiple teams, making him one of the most versatile figures in early professional football.

The Color Ban: 1933 to 1946

In 1933, NFL team owners quietly agreed to stop signing Black players. No official rule was written. No announcement was made. Black players simply stopped appearing on rosters. The last two Black players before the ban, Joe Lillard and Ray Kemp, both left the league after the 1933 season.

The ban lasted thirteen years. During that period, the NFL grew from a semi-professional curiosity into a major American sport, and it did so as an entirely white league. Black players who wanted to play professional football were limited to independent Black teams and barnstorming circuits.

Pollard organized some of these teams himself. In 1935, he founded the Brown Bombers, an all-Black independent football team based in Harlem. He also worked as a talent agent, newspaper publisher, and tax consultant during the years the NFL locked him out.

The ban ended in 1946 when the Los Angeles Rams signed Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, one year before Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. The NFL's integration happened first, but it received far less attention.

The Forgotten Pioneer

For decades, the NFL did not acknowledge Pollard's place in its history. He was not inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame during his lifetime, despite being one of the most important figures of the league's founding era. He died in 1986 at age 92, still largely unknown to modern football fans.

Recognition came slowly. In 2005, the Fritz Pollard Alliance was founded to advocate for diversity in NFL coaching, front office, and scouting positions. The organization took its name from a man most NFL fans had never heard of. Pollard was finally inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005, nearly 80 years after his last game.

The delay says as much about the NFL as it does about Pollard. The league actively erased its own integrated past when it imposed the color ban in 1933, and it took generations to correct the record.

Art Shell and the Modern Era

After the color ban ended in 1946, Black players slowly returned to professional football. But the coaching ranks remained almost entirely white for another four decades. No Black person held a head coaching position in the NFL from Pollard's era until October 3, 1989, when Art Shell was named head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders.

Shell had been a Hall of Fame offensive tackle for the Raiders during the 1970s and early 1980s. As head coach, he led the team to a 54-38 record over his first tenure (1989 to 1994), including a 12-4 season and AFC West title in 1990. He returned for a second stint in 2006, though that season was less successful.

Shell's appointment came 68 years after Pollard first coached. The gap between the two reveals how thoroughly the NFL's color ban and its aftermath suppressed Black leadership in the sport. The Rooney Rule, adopted in 2003, was an attempt to address this pattern by requiring teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching vacancies. The rule was named after Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney but exists because of a problem Fritz Pollard identified in the 1930s.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Fritz Pollard really the first Black NFL player?

Yes. Fritz Pollard and Bobby Marshall both played in the APFA (the NFL's predecessor) during its 1920 inaugural season. Pollard is generally credited as the first because of his greater impact on the league and his subsequent role as the first Black head coach. Both men broke the color line in the same season.

Why isn't Fritz Pollard more well known?

The NFL's 1933 color ban effectively erased early Black players from the league's narrative. For decades, the NFL promoted its history as beginning with the integration era of the late 1940s, ignoring the Black players and coaches who had been part of the league from its founding. Pollard did not receive his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction until 2005, nearly 80 years after he last played.

Who was the first Black NFL head coach in the modern era?

Art Shell became the first Black head coach in the modern NFL on October 3, 1989, when the Los Angeles Raiders named him to the position. Shell had been a Hall of Fame offensive lineman for the Raiders and went on to compile a 56-52 record across two stints as head coach.