Marcus Pollard was a power forward who hadn't played a down of tackle football in four years.
He attended Bradley University, which didn't even field a football team. The Indianapolis Colts learned of him only because one of their scouts was a longtime friend of the athletic director at Pollard's school.
But for 90 minutes one summer afternoon in 1994, a 6-foot-3 kid fresh out of college with springs in his legs and velvet on his hands managed to overshadow all that inexperience. A workout that started as a favor to a friend ended up with Pollard catching passes and capturing imaginations.
"I'll never forget it," said Ken Geiger, the Colts' scout who auditioned Pollard.
It's not every day a NFL scout looks at a prospect by evaluating footage from his basketball games and ends up coming away with a player good enough to be named the Colts' franchise player in 2001.
Geiger watched Pollard audition for a few minutes and then went to get his boss, Bill Tobin. The team was sold on the kid even though he was a year away from being strong enough to compete in a training camp.
Pollard spent the next season working as a custodian at an Illinois gym, reported to the team in 1995 and now he's a dozen years deep into a professional career that earned him inclusion in Bradley's athletic hall of fame for his work in a sport the school dropped after 1971.
An improbable journey for an intriguing character who prefers country music. Folks like Kenny Chesney or Rascal Flatts. He has a 15-acre lake in his backyard and owns a Chevy pickup truck he never washes. He refers to a diesel dualie as his dream vehicle.
Pollard is 35, a tight end who's a little bit country and carries a whole lot of importance to these Seahawks. He's the one who will replace Jerramy Stevens at the position that really differentiates Mike Holmgren's version of the West Coast offense.
Rude awakening
Pollard looked through tears and saw stars. The hit broke his facemask, unbuckled his chin strap and left Pollard a heap on the field.
"Welcome to the NFL, rookie," said the player standing above him.
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Pollard doesn't remember his name, only the number. Fifty-five. Pollard was on the Colts' kickoff-return team. He was assigned to block a certain 49er, and then wait for an Indianapolis teammate to help. The cavalry never came, leaving Pollard to try and shake off the weight of a stiff shot delivered without the benefit of a chaser.
"That was my first experience of getting hit in the NFL," Pollard said.
Pollard played a physical brand of basketball. He was powerful enough to defend 7-footers in the paint. He played two seasons at a community college and was a two-year starter at Bradley, where he average just more than seven points. He didn't need the NBA draft to know he didn't have a future in that league.
"They've got guards that tall," Pollard said.
His hands were good, but that's to be expected from a basketball player. The question was whether he was made of rawhide or tissue paper.
"They've had no knocks or bruises," Geiger said. "You kind of wonder how a kid is going to acclimate to professional football."
The Colts' audition included a strength test. Pollard bench-pressed 225 pounds as many times as he could, a standard exercise in the NFL. Quarterback Brady Quinn performed 24 repetitions earlier this year. Pollard's total that first day? Eight.
The tryout occurred in the summer, and the Colts sent Pollard home to Illinois for the 1994 season with instructions to get stronger. He didn't exactly live in a gym, but he did work in one. He worked as a custodian at a Peoria gym and after he finished an eight-hour shift he would stay to work out for another hour or three.
By the time he reported to the Colts offseason workouts in February, he was 20 pounds heavier.
He didn't play a down in preseason games other than to take a knee.
However, about halfway through the Colts season, injuries to others forced his activation and in Game 6 of the 1995 season there was Pollard, blocking on the kickoff return and waiting on a teammate who never showed.
Pollard picked himself up, went to the sidelines and waited to get his facemask replaced ... bruised but unbowed.
"It really opened my eyes to what I need to be training for," Pollard said, "what I needed to be preparing myself for if I was going to make a career out of it."
No relaxing now
The clock nears noon, the temperature approaches 90 degrees.
Practice ended 20 minutes ago, but the 13-year veteran tight end is running sprints with his helmet and pads alongside Leonard Stephens, one of the Seahawks' practice-squad players from last season.
Connections got Pollard his NFL tryout, but conviction is what kept him in the league into his 30s.
His arms are thick, shoulders square and his mustache gives him more than a passing resemblance to NBA ironman Karl Malone.
"Still a lot of tread on the tires," Pollard said. "And I still feel like I can play at a high level."
He came to Seattle after watching his role and receptions shrink following a coaching change in Detroit.
In 2005, he came to the Lions as a free agent and thrived in the offense installed by Steve Mariucci.
He caught 46 passes, one short of matching his career-high, but Mariucci was fired in the middle of that season.
Mike Martz took over the Lions offense in 2006 under Detroit's new coach, Rod Marinelli, and Pollard finished with 12 catches last season, his fewest since 1996.
"The system wasn't conducive to my abilities," Pollard said. "I understand that."
Pollard pauses for a moment and considers his surroundings with the Seahawks.
"Here it is," he said.
He is someone who knows how to make the most of the moment. That's how he got into the NFL, making up for a lack of a college football career with a 90-minute workout that sold the Colts on his possibilities and set the stage for a pro career.
I really hope that Pollard has another couple good years left in him. He won't be the key guy on offense so I just hope that when the ball does come his way he catches it (something Stevens didn't do) and that he blocks well and shows good effort. He has had a good career but is getting older and it is important to the Hawks offense that he has a good year. Not so much with numbers, but more with the little things like blocking.
Former power forward now key to Hawks' offense
Former power forward now key to Hawks' offense
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