Rich “Uppers” Pollier

The 1961 "Skipper	August, 1996

Uppers has had a full life since our days at RHS. Rich went to work for Western Electric in 1962 and was stayed there until 1976. During that time period, he also joined the National Guard Reserve and did his Basic Training stint at Fort Dix, New Jersey. His regular Guard meetings were held in Niagara Falls and continued until 1976. In 1968, he married Linda Doyle, whom he had met through her dad, a local umpire for youth baseball in Buffalo. 

1970 saw the birth of their only child, a daughter named Amy. Amy lives in Buffalo, is now married and delivered Rich and Linda’s first grandchild in May of 2000. 

Uppers currently works at Father Bakers as a day job, but is eternally active in local high school sports. After graduation from Riverside, he continued to do the filming of the RHS football games until 1972, when the cost of filming became prohibitive. Even though not filming, he still worked the sidelines for Coach Dingboom until his retirement in 1988. 

As videotaping equipment became accessible, Rich resumed his second career as a sports cameraman. He has been taping the football and basketball games for St. Joseph’s High School since 1985 and occasionally does the same for Canisius. He brags that he has only missed four Thanksgiving Days at All-High Stadium since 1959. His love of sports and youth sports, in particular, has been a source of great pleasure for Uppers and he has no plans to abandon those activities. 

As far as personal participation goes, Rich has led a life of addiction to bowling and golf. He has been bowling every Friday night in industrial leagues for something like 37 years, and is justifiably proud of his average that is now running around 190. As much as he enjoys bowling, he says that golf is actually his favorite way to spend a sunny day. In fact, he likes it so much that he was even spotted on the course this Spring when the sun was nowhere to be found and the rain was coming down.

Rich and Linda enjoy getting together with their daughter and her family on a regular basis and take annual vacation trips to search for a warmer climate during some of Buffalo’s infamous bad winter weather.