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2002 - 2013
The claim: Born and schooled in Fort Wayne. Bernard Karmell Pollard was born on 23 December 1984 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and attended South Side High School from 1999 to 2003, lettering in football, basketball, and track. South Side had already given this section DaMarcus Beasley; Pollard is the school's second claim, in the other kind of football.
The making: As a South Side senior in the fall of 2002, Pollard was an all-state defensive back with numbers that read like a misprint: 13 forced fumbles in 12 games, 112 total tackles, and two interceptions, with work at receiver and on the school's sprint relay besides. Purdue took him, and Kansas City drafted him in the second round of the 2006 NFL draft, 54th overall. Across nine seasons with Kansas City, Houston, Baltimore, and Tennessee he started 106 games at safety and built the league's plainest nickname, the Bonecrusher, on the strength of how he tackled.
The ring: Pollard's 2012 season in Baltimore closed the city's Super Bowl account for its generation. He ended the regular season as the Ravens' leading tackler, and in the AFC Championship game at New England his hit on Stevan Ridley forced the fumble that sealed Baltimore's win. On 3 February 2013 the Ravens beat San Francisco in Super Bowl XLVII. The Allen County Genealogical Society's people pages frame the moment as this section does: Pollard became the third football player from Fort Wayne on a Super Bowl winning team, after Woodson with Baltimore in 2001 and Essex twice with Pittsburgh. Three Fort Wayne schoolboys, three championship defences, thirteen seasons: the record is content to let that stand as the article's last line.
Sources:
- Indiana High School Athletic Association, Three Indiana Natives Involved in Super Bowl XLVII, 26 January 2013: born in Fort Wayne, South Side High School 1999-2003, the second-round draft position.
- Indianapolis Star, Top 25 players from a quarter century of Indiana high school football: the 2002 South Side senior season, 13 forced fumbles and 112 tackles; the career totals.
- Allen County Genealogical Society, P surnames, Bernard Pollard: the third Fort Wayne player on a Super Bowl winning team, 3 February 2013.
- Bernard Pollard career record: the 2012 Baltimore season and the AFC Championship fumble.