by KEVIN SHERRINGTON , THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

Not until he more or less retired from running automobile dealerships at 50 did he take stock of where he'd been and where he'd still like to go.

His first big adventure was the 1963 AFL All-Star Game in San Diego. He slept on a rollaway bed in the hotel room shared by the Texans' Len Dawson and Sherrill Headrick, whom he'd befriended at the North Dallas bowling alley where Headrick worked in the off-season, which tells you how long ago and far away it really was.

Pollard, 68, never missed a Cowboys game in those days, so he was in Miami when Dallas lost Super Bowl V to Baltimore. He's made nine Super Bowls since.

By the time he tried retiring in 1990, Pollard had been to the Masters and a Formula One race and a Final Four and baseball and basketball all-star games and a heavyweight title fight. With nothing better to do, he stepped it up a notch.

Since 1993, the roll call in golf alone includes three U.S. Opens, two more Masters, a Ryder Cup, a British Open and a PGA. He's been to a couple of Stanley Cup Finals, the Indy 500, the Daytona 500, the National Finals Rodeo and the Kentucky Derby and Belmont.

He's been to a World Series and a World Cup. He's seen tennis at Flushing Meadows as well as Wimbledon.

Experienced the America's Cup in Valencia. Partied with Austinites at the Tour de France. Considered running with the bulls at Pamplona.

Wisely, only watched.

Best trip: In '94, flew in a private jet on an all-expenses-paid trip for the Lillehammer Olympics, where he stayed in the USOC hotel.

Biggest ticket: Fifteen hundred for the World Cup in Munich, and he doesn't know a thing about soccer.

Best bargain: Fifty bucks for himself and his wife, Charlie, for a pair on the 25 to the 2005 BCS title game between USC and Oklahoma.

Biggest regret: Passing on the '06 title game between Texas and USC because he'd heard a ticket couldn't be had.

Normally, the natural salesman wouldn't think twice about walking up.

"I'd go anywhere in the world without a ticket," he said.

Case in point: On the flight to Atlanta in '87, he met a guy who loaned him a badge for two days of the Masters.

In case you need documentation, he's wallpapered the proof all over his house on the 15th hole of the Northwood Club:

Programs, posters, paintings, pictures, plates, prints, newspaper covers, golf balls, bobblehead dolls, wristwatches, coffee cups, champagne bottles, matchbook covers, the works. It's like trying to find free space on Dennis Rodman.

"My wife's upset with me," Pollard says, opening the door to the laundry room. "She used to have baskets and flowers in here."

Coming up on the list: the Preakness and the French Open this year, and next year, the world's most famous sled race.

He can't pronounce "Iditarod," but he's going, just the same.

"If somebody asks," he says of the philosophy behind it all, "I can say I did that, too."

ksherrington@dallasnews.com

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