Fritz Pollard was born on January 27th, 1894. His parents, John and Catherine, raised a fine boy as he was at the top of his class in not only academics, but also athletics. Fritz had 2 athletically gifted brothers, Leslie and Hughes. Leslie had played college football at Dartmouth, and his brother was a great football player at Lane Tech. His sister, Naomi, had become the first black woman to graduate from Northwestern University. When Pollard was just a child, his family had lived in a wealthy neighborhood near Chicago. His neighbors had gave him the nickname "Fritz." As he grew up, he attented high school at Lane Tech located in Chicago, Illinois. He then tried getting into three different colleges, two of which are in the Ivy League; those colleges were Northwestern, Harvard, and Dartmouth. Although Pollard didn't apply to attend college at Brown, they allowed him to go to school there. After all that chaos, Pollard succeeded at Brown University which turned out to be the college for him.