The former ESPN anchor David Pollack shocked his fans on Monday when he revealed that his wife was set to undergo brain surgery.
The 42-year-old host, who was fired by ESPN in 2023, revealed on X (formerly Twitter) that his wife Lindsey Pollack, was going under the knife as she battles brain cancer.
He asked his fans for their ‘prayers’ ahead of the grueling ordeal.
‘I do not share much of my personal life on social media but today is gonna be different,’ he began his post. ‘If you are the praying type please lift up my wife Lindsey. She has brain cancer and surgery is Wednesday at Duke.
Pollack — who stirred up controversy in the past by saying that women should not be able to serve on the College Football Playoff selection committee — added that he was ‘So thankful to serve a loving God that meets us in our struggles!’
Pollack doesn’t appear to have previously revealed that his wife was battling brain cancer.
The former ESPN anchor David Pollack shocked his fans on Monday when he revealed that his wife was set to undergo brain surgery
The 42-year-old host, who was fired by ESPN in 2023, revealed on X (formerly Twitter) that his wife Lindsey Pollack, was going under the knife as she battles brain cancer
Although Pollack’s wife Lindsey tends to stay out of the spotlight, she and her husband joined together to found the Pollack Family Foundation, which focuses on education families and communities about the importance of exercise and proper nutrition, while also warning about the potential health consequences of childhood obesity.
The couple share two children: older son Nicholas, who is a junior in high school, and daughter Leah, who is a high school sophomore.
Prior to his stint on ESPN as a College GameDay host, Pollack was known for being a college football star at the University of Georgia.
He became only the second player for the Bulldogs to earn first-team All-American honors three times, following in the footsteps of star running back–turned–failed US Senate candidate Herschel Walker.
Pollack went on to be a first-round pick for the 2005 NFL draft, where he was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals.
But his NFL career was cut short in just the second game of his second season with the Bengals when a tackle broke one of his vertebrae.
Although he was miraculously not paralyzed by the injury, doctors determined that he could not safely play football again after the devastating injury.
He was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2020.
Prior to his stint on ESPN as a College GameDay host, Pollack was known for being a college football star at the University of Georgia, followed by a short career in the NFL; seen with wife Lindsey
David and his wife Lindsey share two children: older son Nicholas, who is a junior in high school, and daughter Leah, who is a high school sophomore (pictured together)
Pollack transitioned into TV sports show anchoring in 2008, beginning for CBS before moving to ESPN as an analyst in 2009.
Two years later, he joined College GameDay and began co-hosting Palmer And Pollack.
But his tenure at ESPN was swept up in controversy after he said in 2013, after he said that women should not be members of the College Football Playoff selection committee in the wake of reports that Condoleezza Rice was being considered for a position.
Pollack defended his position at the time, claiming that women couldn’t be on the committee because they had not played football.
A decade later, he spoke out against transgender women competing in women’s sports.
In a social media post from November 2023, he said that women’s sports should not be ‘a transfer portal for mediocre male athletes.’
Months earlier, in June 2023, Pollack was laid off by ESPN as part of the network’s efforts to achieve ‘some additional cost savings.’
However, Pollack later suggested that he may have been fired due to his conservative social views.
Pollack (seen with his wife and two children) transitioned to anchoring in 2008. In 2009 he joined ESPN as an analyst and two years later joined College GameDay
He has come under fire in the past for socially conservative public pronouncements. In 2013, he said women could not serve on the College Football Playoff selection committee because they hadn’t played football
‘I’ve been very thankful that I’ve been fired,’ Pollack said on Jason Whitlock’s Fearless podcast in October 2024. ‘It’s opened up me to be able to talk about whatever the subject is in a truthful manner.’
He added that ESPN gave him the impression that his public pronouncements could affect his job.
‘I’m not saying they always said that to me, but it was very clear, like, “Your opinions you post on social media, while they are yours, they also represent us. So, we are taking that into account,”‘ he claimed.
He added that he ‘worried’ that ESPN might fire him for saying controversial or offensive things on his public social media feeds.
Pollack castigated himself for self-censoring because of those fears, calling it ‘a bad job by me, a really bad job by me.’