MEMPHIS — Tony Pollard wasn't there.
Tony Pollard is always there.
Everywhere.
Arms outstretched, the first-year Tennessee Titans running back is on a poster on the wall to the left of the menu hanging behind the counter at Pollard's Bar-B-Q. Two words are spelled out in white.
WELCOME HOME
There he is a few feet to the right, in the window and next to it, on posters touting his college success at Memphis .
CHANGE THE GAME
PLAYER OF THE YEAR ALL-AMERICAN
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There he is again, around the corner, framed and matted in black and Memphis blue, in a Commercial Appeal story with a larger-than-life headline.
A SPECIAL PLAYER
Add the entire wall dedicated to Tony Pollard inside the brick building with the red roof on 4560 Elvis Presley Blvd., and you get the point: Tarrance Pollard is proud of his son, who led the Titans with 82 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries during the team's season-opening loss to the Chicago Bears.
"I wish all of 'em could have been like Tony," he said.
The smell of the ribs he had started smoking was still stuck to his black T-shirt when he took a seat at a table near the front window.
"Truthful. Never got in no trouble," he continued.
'A stampede of kids trying to fight my brother'
Well, almost never.
Tony Pollard showed his moxie as a running back early — and out of 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 and stuff," said Terrion, who helps run the family business with his father. "Tony hit some kid, busted his nose by accident."
The boy didn't take too kindly to it and went after Tony. So did a lot of the other boys.
"It was basically a stampede of kids trying to fight my brother," said Terrion, who played collegiately at Lane, an HBCU in Jackson, Tennessee. "I remember him running up the street, a line of guys chasing him. He ran back home so fast I couldn't even catch him."
Neither could anyone else.
His speed also came in handy one day in third grade after he returned home from school and thought the family's home had been robbed. Some cabinets had fallen off the wall and it looked "like chaos."
Tony panicked. Visions of the time his family's apartment was robbed danced in his head.
Tarrance, who was returning home, caught a glimpse of his son "running till he got almost clean off the two acres of land."
'He told me he wanted to run'
Once upon a time, Pollard was afraid of football.
He was 4 years old playing against older boys, some twice his age. Terrion, four years Tony's senior, was one of those kids.
"He's standing out there with his little uniform as I pull up to a practice," Tarrance said of Tony. "The coach had a line of dudes running, and Tony gets the tackle. He tackled maybe two or three of those little boys."
And then?
"And then the next one came," Tarrance continued. " Man , came and laid him out.
"Them eyes were really heavy with the water, but he wouldn't let it run out."
That day, Tony Pollard told his father he wanted to quit football.
The way Tarrance remembers it, Tony didn't play again until he was 8. Terrion remembers it differently, said Tony never quit.
Either way, Tony was a lineman by then, "a tackling machine."
"But he used to nag me all the time, told me he wanted to run," Tarrance said.
Tarrance "nagged" the coach. Tony eventually ran in practice. Tony eventually ran in a game.
He's been a running back since.
Derrick Henry helped convince Tony Pollard to play for Titans
How did Tony Pollard end up playing for the Tennessee Titans ?
The man he's trying to help replace, Derrick Henry, had something to do with it.
Pollard and Henry, who signed a two-year deal with the Baltimore Ravens in March after eight seasons with the Titans, work out together in Dallas. That's where Pollard used to play for the Cowboys.
"Derrick let him know it's going to be real good in Tennessee," Tarrance said. "He told Tony it was great, he loved it in Tennessee."
Playing close to home was a consideration when the 6-foot, 209-pounder pondered where to sign. That's what he did in March, for three years and $21.75 million.
"That definitely went into my decision making," said Tony, who was picked by the Dallas Cowboys in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. "Just being close to family, having games so close to home so I can have a good home crowd coming out to support. Just coming where I was wanted."
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'I was getting paid something'
Tony Pollard worked one summer at Pollard's Bar-B-Q, before his sophomore year at Memphis Melrose.
He helped ring up orders, cooked burgers and hot dogs and smoked sausage.
"I don't remember what I was getting paid," he said, pausing to try to recall. "But I was getting paid something."
Then football got in the way.
"I just got too heavily involved in football," Tony said.
'We think this is going to be his best year'
Tarrance Pollard learned how to cook barbecue from his grandfather, who worked at a packing house and helped raise him in Memphis.
He seared rabbit. He slaughtered cows. He made barbecue.
He began working at Gridley's Bar-B-Q in Memphis when he was 16. Two years later, he joined the Navy.
He began his business in a food truck in 1995. He moved to a small carryout location 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 eateries.
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 the way he and Terrion once did for the Dallas Cowboys.
Tony Pollard has come full circle. The 2019 NFL Draft was held in Nashville.
"We think it's going to be his best year," Tarrance said.
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at pskrbina@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina . Follow his work here .
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tony Pollard's journey from family's Memphis barbecue joint to Tennessee Titans running back
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