Pollock’s failures help brother, Reed, get to NFL
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In fall of 2010, Goldsboro senior Jarran Reed was lighting up the football field with over 100 tackles in his final season, but in the stands it was hard for his older brother Don Pollock to watch.
Not because Pollock was jealous, but because his own failures in college brought him back home.
“His senior year I had messed up at my second college, and I was coming back here watching him play. It was kind of hard for me to come up in the stands, because a lot of people expected me to go on, play and to make something of myself,” Pollock said. “For me to not accomplish that, it was hard to come back to this field and people just asking me what happened.”
Pollock graduated in 2007 and earned a scholarship to North Carolina A&T. He ended up leaving the school, but owns that it was all his fault on why he had to leave.
“Before I blame anybody or the programs I been a part of, I will always step front and center to take blame for my own actions, because I put myself in those predicaments,” Polluck said. “I sold myself short in practices. I sold myself short in going the extra mile. I sold myself short in the classroom. I gave up on myself.”
But Pollock wasn’t going to let his younger brother end up the same way. When Reed wasn’t selected to play in the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas, he was upset and considered not playing in the North Carolina Coaches Association East-West All-Star Game.
“I told him, ‘Man, you don’t quit on yourself.’ I’ve messed up and I’ve gave up on myself, and that’s been my biggest help in helping him,” Pollock said. “I was determined to not let him mess up or give up on himself. When you play so hard and you’ve done everything you feel is right, and you don’t feel you’re where you deserve to be it’s easy to quit — especially coming from Goldsboro.”
Reed did have a slip up in grades and was not able to go to Fayetteville State as planned, but he did not quit. He did a year at Hargrave Military Academy, then two years at East Mississippi Community College before finding himself on a national title team at Alabama for two years. Reed was then drafted to the Seattle Seahawks in the second round in 2016.
“When you got people that still tell you it’s possible, there’s other options, other routes, that you don’t have to take the straight route that everyone else takes,” Pollock said. “It’s not about where you start, but where you finish. That has been the biggest thing with him throughout his journey — understanding it’s not about where he starts but where he finishes out when he’s done playing this game.”
With Reed entering his fourth year in the NFL, Pollock said his failures are worth seeing his brother succeed.
“When I was younger, me and guy got into an argument, he told me, my brother was going to be better than me and I told him in the middle of the argument — that’s what I dream of,” Pollock said. “I’ve always dreamed of my brother being the most incredible person on this earth, and I look at him like that. I know it’s probably a bias thing to say, but my brother has a good heart. All my downs, I don’t regret none of them. Even before he made it to this point, I’ve never regretted none of them because it gave me a chance to grow.”
Pollock now coaches the offensive line and defensive line at Goldsboro High.
