Pond, after attending high school in Torrington, Connecticut, his birthplace, and the Hotchkiss School, was a member of the Yale Class of 1925, and a 1924 first-team All-American at halfback. Pond starred in the 1923 edition of The Game. He was nicknamed "Ducky" by Grantland Rice for returning a fumble 63 yards that afternoon against Harvard on a field that resembled "seventeen lakes, five quagmires and a water hazard". Yale hadn't scored a touchdown versus Harvard since the end of World War I. As an undergraduate at Yale, Pond also played on the baseball team, where he was coached by Smoky Joe Wood.