THOMASVILLE — As he lay in the back of an ambulance, David Pollack wondered if the dream he was living was coming to a quick end. 

Just a few minutes before, the former University of Georgia star was face-down on the Paul Brown Field surface. It had been his goal since he was 6 years old to be a professional football player.

Two games into his second season as a Cincinnati Bengal, it was over. 

“I’m sitting in the back of the ambulance and they bring my bride in there and I looked at her and said, ’There is a good chance this is the last time i will ever put on a uniform,” Pollack recalled. “All those moments, all those dreams, the game you love so much, and for me, it was the case. That was it. One hit. One thing that defined the rest of my career.”

However, from that day, Pollack has fashioned a career as a college football analyst and he told the United Way of Thomas County annual campaign kickoff crowd he doesn’t regret his playing days coming to an end.

“I can stand before you now and say it’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me, 100% the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “When you get knocked down, you learn a lot about yourself. I hear it all the time, you get knocked down, that’s not the most important thing — it’s getting up. I couldn’t get up for a while. I didn’t have that opportunity. My body wouldn’t get up.”

Pollack, a standout defensive end in college, was playing outside linebacker with the Bengals. He wanted to impose a big hit on Cleveland Browns running back Reuben Droughns. 

“Second play of second season. And it’s a draw. I’m ready to bring the wood,” Pollack said. “I hit him as hard as I could. He hit me harder. 

“I go down, face down on the field. I’ve taken a ton of big hits in my life. But this is the first time where it was a little bit different. I had a big shooting pain down my neck. It was the first time I couldn’t move.”

Taken to the X-ray machine at the stadium, Pollack found out it wasn’t just another “stinger.” 

“They cut off my helmet, they cut off my shoulder pads, they cut off all my stuff,” he said. “And I get an X-ray.”

The doctor told Pollack his C-6 and C-7 vertebrae were fractured.

“I was like, ’that doesn’t sound that bad. What is that, a couple of weeks?’ he said. “I had no clue what that meant.” 

What it meant, he learned, is that he had a broken neck. 

Football dreams and tribulations

Pollack’s older brother was 6 when he started playing football. Pollack was 4 at the time and his parents asked if he wanted to play.

“They didn’t have to ask me too much because I was running up and down the sidelines like an animal, tackling everything in sight,” he said. “I knew good and well I had a passion for the game of football, and I loved it. I told everybody, when I was 6, 7, 8 years old, I was going to play in the NFL.

“That was one of those moments where people told me, ‘that’s awesome, but you can’t do that.’” 

Pollack, a New Jersey native, grew up in the Atlanta suburb of Snellville and attended Shiloh High. The Generals’ football fortunes weren’t much at the time. In fact, Pollack noted he had three different coaches his first three years. 

However, his constant work in the weight room — and adding four inches of height and 50 pounds — helped make him a college prospect and the team’s top player.

His coach, John Almond, pulled Pollack aside one day.

“He says, ‘We’re going to do big things. And if we’re going to do big things, I need you to be the best player on the field.’ I thought, ‘I have been the best player on the field. Did you watch last year?’” Pollack said. 

Almond turned on a video tape he made of Pollack the previous year for his star player to watch.

“And it was me kind of halfway jogging to the football,” Pollack said. ”He said, ‘You have to be the best player on the field every play, not when you choose to.’ You talk about changing the way I approached practice. 

“We have to find those people in our lives who are going to challenge us.” 

When Pollack got to Georgia, he found plenty of challenge. Originally a fullback there, he was moved to defensive line when injuries decimated that position. Before his sophomore season, the majority of the defensive ends jumped to the NFL, so Pollack moved positions again.

This time, he was lined up across future NFL draft picks and tackles George Foster and Jon Stinchcomb. 

“And I’m getting my teeth kicked in,” he said. “I can’t stand to lose.”

Pollack, now a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, turned in one of the most memorable plays in modern Bulldogs history against South Carolina. He shed a block at the line of scrimmage from the opposing tackle, fought through the running back and wrapped up the opposing quarterback in the end zone.

In the midst of that, the ball wound up in Pollack’s hands for an improbable touchdown, and the Bulldogs’ only touchdown in a 13-6 win under coach Mark Richt.

Having done his homework on the Gamecocks, Pollack diagnosed what the play was going to be just by the formation.

“I wasn’t trying to intercept the ball,” he said. “I was trying to bat the pass down. When I hit the quarterback, the ball ran down his back. I’ve done a bunch of speaking engagements with Coach Richt and I tell him, ‘you’re welcome.’ It was being prepared and the grace of God, because I don’t know what that was and I couldn’t do it again.” 

His first professional sack was against Peyton Manning — but under far different circumstances. Pollack was ready but when the receiver went into motion, he decided to roll the dice with his assignment.

“Peyton is a human computer. He knows where everybody is supposed to be,” Pollack said. “And that guy goes in motion. Literally, I have no clue. I just blitz and go sack Peyton Manning. He gets up and goes, ‘You weren’t supposed to be there, were you?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely not.’”

Pollack came out of Georgia as the SEC Player of the Year, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, a two-time Ted Hendricks Award winner and a Lombardi Award winner.

“It was tough for me imagining David having much shelf space in his house,” said Ray Drew, who the former Thomas County Central star who also later starred on Georgia’s defensive line and wore the same number as Pollack, 47. “His senior year, the only person who would have been comparable to him in awards was maybe 1984 Michael Jackson at the Grammys. This guy cleaned house.”

Getting the call to broadcasting

After his collision with Droughns, Pollack spent six weeks in a neck brace. From there, it was six weeks in a halo device — “I’ve always been an angel, that was just verification,” Pollack said — which meant holes getting drilled into his skull.

Surgery and more time in the neck brace followed. Finally, after two years, he was cleared to start working out again. 

So the player who was a three-time all-American, a three-time all-Southeastern Conference pick and the SEC defensive player of the year and who once bench-pressed 455 pounds struggled to get 135 pounds off his chest. 

The doctors told him his cervical fusion wasn’t healing the way they wanted. So Pollack began looking at the next chapter in his life. 

He got an audition at 790 The Zone, then a sports talk radio staton in Atlanta. From there, he did “SEC Gridiron Live” on Atlanta’s Fox affiliate. 

“Nobody watched,” he said. “My momma didn’t watch.”

But Kirk Herbstreit, the ESPN college football analyst, was watching. He and Pollack knew each other, and Herbstreit called Pollack to encourage him to audition with ESPN.

He did — and got a spot on a midnight-2 a.m. highlight show. He went from making first-round draft pick money with each check to $12,000 — a year. 

“You never know who’s watching. People are always watching,” Pollack said. “And you will always have opportunities.”

When his agent asked what he wanted to do, Pollack said he wanted to be part of ESPN’s popular College GameDay. His agent, Pollack said, had a response similar to what he got when he was 6 years old and he told people he wanted to play in the NFL.

Two years later, ESPN added another hour to the GameDay show and put it on ESPNU. They needed another person alongside Erin Andrews.

Pollack got the call.

“Didn’t deserve it — at all — but I was doing my job with adrenaline, with energy,” he said. “Now I’m in year 10 with the guys.” 

For Pollack, his career with ESPN, after his own NFL career was cut short, is a result of tackling what’s ahead with energy and enthusiasm.

“Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do. God can do amazing things and does amazing things and uses ordinary people to do amazing things,” he said. “You’re going to face adversity, every single of us. What’s our answer? What are we going to do every day to make sure we’re giving our best? 

“If you learn anything from my journey, somebody is always watching,” Pollack said. “Somebody is always watching and you do your job and you do it well and you do with the excitement, you’re going to get opportunities. Adversity is going to come. And it’s your job to respond.” 

Editor Pat Donahue can be reached at (229) 226-2400 ext. 1806.