College football athletes and coaches repeatedly prove their faith is not just for show. To former Georgia Bulldog David Pollack, it serves as his refuge in times of crisis. As he shared his experience during his wife’s battle with cancer, Pollack recounted the role his faith played through this blow.

“My wife’s was by far the hardest,” Pollack said on the Sons of Saturday YouTube channel. “Because that’s not me. I couldn’t handle it, I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t do anything about it. So, that was a real struggle. And then, God showed me, like, ‘hey man, she’s mine before she’s yours. I got this. It’s the same situation; you got to trust me.

“So, God has brought difficult circumstances into our lives. But there is not one of these circumstances we would sit there and change.”

Pollack has had several battles to fight in his life, and his wife’s cancer battle was one of the greatest ones. His wife, Lindsey Pollack, was diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma in March 2025. Hours after her diagnosis, her treatment involved emergency brain surgery at Duke University Hospital in North Carolina.

After the surgery, Lindsey experienced partial paralysis on her left side, which restricted movement in her arm and hand. She also had fatigue and low blood pressure. However, Pollack soon began giving updates on her recovery with videos of her doing things she could not do before. And in March this year, Pollack announced that she was cancer-free. Beyond the victory, the experience taught Pollack to value the little things people often overlook.

“So, all these things that happen in our lives, man, they’re for our good. They’re there to teach us. They’re there to help us to take a next step in life that we couldn’t take. I had to slow down; I had to realize that walking, you don’t take for granted; moving your hands, you don’t take for granted.

“And because of those things, man, [you] have so much more empathy and sympathy and compassion for those around you, because whatever you’re going through, somebody buried their kid today. Somebody’s going through something worse. And I think that’s the perspective: God is for us in every situation, the good ones, the bad ones. There’s something we need to learn from this.”

Pollack’s response seemed so much like a homily. His wise words soon earned him a compliment from his host, Billy Ray Mitchell, who admitted it was the “best first answer” he had received on the podcast. As much as his wife’s sickness was a recent storm, he faced another major one when he had to abruptly end his playing career.

Pollack’s faith helped when his football career was cut short

Pollack had a successful stint at the Georgia Bulldogs, where he was a three-time first-team All-American, and his 36 sacks remain the most in the program’s history. He was so good that he got picked by the Cincinnati Bengals with the 17th overall pick in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft. However, a neck injury cut short his career in the second game of his second season.

“When I was four years old, I told everybody I was going to play in the NFL,” he added. “And then, to go and to get that. And then, it’d be gone in one play. Of course, there have been struggles. Of course, there have been hard times. But you talk about a perspective, like God forced me to slow down.

“At 21 years old, being done with football. Never thought that would happen in my life. This is all I’ve pursued. But dude, you talk about learning how to be a great friend, you talk about being a better husband, a better son, a better father.”

Pollack also spoke about encountering another hurdle in his media career, which he switched to after his injury. After his career ended, he joined ESPN as a co-host on ESPN’s Thursday Night Football. But he was laid off in 2023. This led him to eventually launch his own YouTube show and podcast, See Ball Get Ball. In essence, Pollack’s life has been one of many challenges. However, his faith and mindset have seen him come out of every one of them with more wins.