MEMPHIS — Tony Pollard was not there.
Tony Pollard is still there.
Everywhere.
Arms outstretched, the first year Tennessee Titans The running back’s name is on a poster hanging on the wall to the left of the menu, behind the counter at Pollard’s Bar-B-Q. Two words are written in white.
WELCOME HOME
It is there, a few meters to the right, in the window and next to it, on posters praising his university. success in Memphis.
CHANGING THE GAME
PLAYER OF THE YEAR ALL AMERICAN
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There it is again, on the street corner, framed and matted in black and Memphis blue, in a Commercial Call History with a larger than life title.
A SPECIAL PLAYER
Add in the entire Tony Pollard wall inside the red-roofed brick building at 4560 Elvis Presley Blvd., and you get the idea: Tarrance Pollard is proud of his son, who led the Titans with 82 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries during the team’s 2010-11 season. defeat at the start of the season to the Chicago Bears.
“I wish they were all like Tony,” he said.
The smell of the ribs he had started smoking still clung to his black T-shirt when he sat down at a table near the front window.
“I’m honest. I’ve never been in trouble,” he continued.
“A stampede of children trying to fight my brother”
Well, almost never.
Tony Pollard showed his mettle early on as a running back — and by necessity — all the way home from a friend’s house.
He was there with his brother, Terrion. Most of the boys were much older than him.
“We were on a trampoline, jumping around,” says Terrion, who helps his father run the family business. “Tony accidentally hit a kid and broke his nose.”
The boy didn’t like it and picked on Tony, as did many other boys.
“It was basically a stampede of kids trying to fight my brother,” said Terrion, who played college football at Lane, an HBCU in Jackson, Tennessee. “I remember him running down the street with a line of guys chasing him. He ran home so fast I couldn’t even catch up with him.”
No one else could either.
His speed also came in handy one day in third grade when he came home from school and thought the family home had been broken into. Some cabinets had fallen off the wall and it looked like “chaos.”
Tony was panicked. Images of the day his family’s apartment had been burglarized danced through his head.
Tarrance, who was returning home, saw his son “running until he had nearly finished the two acres of land.”
“He told me he wanted to run.”
There was a time when Pollard was afraid of football.
He was four years old and playing against older boys, some of whom were twice his age. Terrion, four years his senior, was one of these children.
“He was there in his little uniform as I was coming into practice,” Tarrance said of Tony. “Coach had a line of guys running, and Tony was the tackler. He tackled maybe two or three of those little guys.”
And then?
“And then the next one came along,” Tarrance continued.Mancame and laid it down.
“His eyes were really heavy with water, but he didn’t let it flow.”
That day, Tony Pollard told his father he wanted to quit football.
According to Tarrance, Tony didn’t play again until he was 8 years old. Terrion remembers it differently, saying Tony never gave up.
Anyway, Tony was already a lineman, “a tackling machine.”
“But he was always pestering me, telling me he wanted to run,” Tarrance said.
Tarrance “harassed” the coach. Tony ended up running in practice. Tony ended up running in a game.
Since then, he has become a running back.
Derrick Henry helped convince Tony Pollard to play for the Titans
How did Tony Pollard end up playing for the Tennessee Titans?
The man he’s trying to replace, Derrick Henry, has something to do with it.
Pollard and Henry, who signed a two-year contract with the Baltimore Ravens in March after eight seasons with the Titans, they train together in Dallas. That’s where Pollard played for the Cowboys.
“Derrick let him know it was going to be really good in Tennessee,” Tarrance said. “He told Tony it was great, that he loved Tennessee.”
Playing close to home was a consideration for the 6-foot, 209-pounder when he considered where to sign. He did just that in March, for three years and $21.75 million.
“It definitely influenced my decision making,” said Tony, who was chosen by the Dallas Cowboys in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. “Just being close to my family, having games so close to home so I can have a good hometown crowd supporting me. It’s just coming to where I was wanted.”
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“I was getting paid”
Tony Pollard worked at Pollard’s Bar-BQ for a summer before his sophomore year at Memphis Melrose.
He helped take orders, cooked hamburgers, hot dogs and smoked sausages.
“I don’t remember what I was paid,” he said, pausing to try to recall. “But I was getting something.”
And then football came along to disrupt the course of things.
“I just got too involved in football,” Tony said.
“We think this will be his best year.”
Tarrance Pollard learned to cook barbecue from his grandfather, who worked in a packing plant and helped him grow up in Memphis.
He had rabbit seized. He slaughtered cows. He had barbecues.
He started working at Gridley’s Bar-B-Q in Memphis at age 16. Two years later, he joined the Navy.
He started his business as a food truck in 1995. He moved to a small takeout restaurant a year later and landed on Elvis Presley Boulevard in 2011. Four months later, the restaurant was featured on The Food Network’s “Restaurant: Impossible,” a show that helps renovate and reinvigorate restaurants.
Tarrance feels right at home here. He thinks his son will feel right at home being so close to home with the Titans, for whom he hopes to cook barbecue like he and Terrion once did for the Dallas Cowboys.
Tony Pollard has come full circle. The 2019 NFL Draft took place in Nashville.
“We think this will be his best year,” Tarrance said.
Paul Skrbina is an enterprise sports reporter who covers the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] and on X (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina. Follow his work here.
This article was originally published on Nashville Tennessean: Tony Pollard: from Memphis BBQ family restaurant to Titans running back
