Hair Club founder helps a father’s passionate pitch
Sy Sperling lends hand to Parkland dad’s crusade to protect students.
Despite vast differences in lifestyle and background, Sy Sperling, whose previously bald head made him and his Hair Club for Men famous, actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Andrew Pollack, a father living in Coral Springs, have all found common ground.
Pollack’s daughter, Meadow Pollack, was one of 17 students and adults gunned down Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Andrew Pollack hasn’t stopped his crusade to protect students after his work earned him a spot beside Gov. Rick Scott in March while Scott signed a law boosting school safety and restricting access to guns. Pollack’s success has pushed him further — he has a nonprofit geared to students’ safety and sits on the state’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission.
Pollack’s passion and hard work have reached a national level and beyond, attracting support from all political sides and walks of life. And that work now includes Sperling, who lives in nearby Hillsboro Beach, and Sigler, best known for her role as Meadow Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos.
Pollack has emphasized since Day One of his mission that his work is not about politics.
“Everyone’s going to get on board with this,” Pollack told The Palm Beach Post. “It’s what everyone wants. It’s not about being Republican or Democratic. It’s the human party. That’s my message. It radiates to everybody in the country. It’s about what we all want, and that’s children’s safety in school.”
Lending a helping hand ... and a voice
Pollack said it’s not diffi- cult to get people to join his mission, but not everyone is accepted — he wants to make sure the reasons are right.
“For me, it’s picking out the people who are for real,” said Pollack, who manages real estate. “I weed out the people who aren’t genuine.”
Sperling had his eye on Pollack before he even met him. He saw him on television and immediately felt a connection to him.
“He stood out from the rest of the crowd because he was so passionate,” said Sperling, who grew up in the Bronx before shooting to fame and fortune with his hair restoration and replacement company. “He has a very distinct Brooklyn accent. He got through to me.”
Sperling, 76, married with two sons, knows all about marketing and getting the word out. His slogan “I’m not only Hair Club for Men president, but I’m also a client” became a genius catchphrase that took off in the 1980s and ’90s. Sperling sold the company in 2000 for $45 million, according to The Wall Street Journal and now spends the summers in Vancouver. He also spends his time helping causes he believes in, like Pollack’s.
“Along the way, I developed some on-the-job train- ing about how to take a com- pany from ground zero and take it to the next level and the next level over that,” said Sperling, who started the company with very lit- tle money.
The two were introduced through a mutual friend, even though a formal introduction wasn’t entirely necessary (Pollack did watch TV in the ’80s). Sperling and Pollack had lunch about three weeks ago at the Farmer’s Table in Boca Raton.
“He’s a master at market- ing,” Pollack said. “He wants to help.”
So now Sperling is making phone calls.
“I’m not going to be his PR firm, but I’ll be coaching him,” Sperling said. “Maybe more phone calls around the country, getting radio interviews, making business connections, maybe getting donors to jump aboard. I’m just somebody on the side- lines. I don’t have the same passion that he has. Nobody really can.”
Once he gets the interview, Pollack has a lot to talk about. He said the School Board, the FBI, the Sheriff ’s Office ... they all “let everybody down in the community.”
Pollack recently started a nonprofit called Americans for CLASS, which stands for Children’s Lives and School Safety. Through that, he wants to create a union for students and their parents to make sure they have a voice. The union would be the one to follow up on reports about students making threats or showing signs of mental illness, like what happened with Nikolas Cruz, who has confessed to the shooting.
“We’re going to be the voice of parents and stu- dents throughout the country, and we’re going to be the voice to make sure if there is someone like this in the school district, that everyone’s made aware of it,” Pollack said. “We follow through. We follow up and make sure that these people are spoken to or they get the help that they need. Like this kid, maybe he needed help.”
‘There’s nothing out of my grasp’
Pollack also wants to help students with drug addiction and mental illness. He wants to form class watches, simi- lar to neighborhood watches, where parents and grandpar- ents can volunteer at schools.
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Pollack said. Both died.
Pollack doesn’t blame the teacher. the school But resource he does officer, blame Scot Peterson.
“Peterson was at the building, and he could have stopped him before he went to the third floor. He’s just a coward. He could have saved everybody on that third floor,” Pollack said.
Pollack is also working toward building a playground and m emorial to remember all the victims. He has raised about $300,000. He said he’ll have enough by the end of May to build it.
He planned a fundraising event for May 12 that will be hosted by Jamie-Lynn Sigler at Wish Boca. For $100, attendees will have cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, listen to live music and meet celebrities. Mixed martial artists Tyrone Spong and Rashad Evans and former Miami Dolphins lineman Bryant McKinnie are expected. Pollack said Sigler heard about the memorial and playground and wanted to help. “She’s a p ar e nt, and she wants her kids safe in schools,” he said. Pollack said he gets a big boost from his wife, Dr. Julie Pollack, and two sons, Huck and Hunter. “A big part of me got buried with my daughter, and I’m not the same person,” he said. “It’s terrible. I changed. All my friends, I changed to them. I changed to my family. I’m not the same person anymore. I’m just not there for everyone like I used to be,” Pollack said. But, he’s determined. “There’s nothing I can’t do. That’s what I want the American people to know. There’s nothing out of my grasp,” he said, “and if it’s making the schools safe then that’s what’s going to get done.”