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Barry Helton

American football player

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ4864300
Source-derived summary

Barry Bret Helton (born January 2, 1965) is an American former professional football player who was a punter for four seasons in the National Football League (NFL) during the 1980s and 1990s. He played college football for the Colorado Buffaloes, twice earning consensus All-American honors. He was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in fourth round of the 1988 NFL draft with the 102nd overall pick. He played in the NFL for San Francisco and Los Angeles Rams, playing in Super Bowl XXIII and Super Bowl XXIV for the 49ers.

Helton was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He attended the University of Colorado Boulder, where he played for the Buffaloes from 1984 to 1987.

Helton's son Bret is also a professional athlete, pitching in the Pittsburgh Pirates' minor league system. He and his wife Lisa had three more children, Chad, Brad and Nicole.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Barry Helton” as american football player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Barry, Helton and American.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1965, 1988, 1984, 1987—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1965-01-02. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Barry, Helton and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Barry Helton”, the useful work is to connect “american football player” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4864300. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 1988, 1984 and 1987.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Barry Helton”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Barry Helton primary sources, Barry Helton archive and Barry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Barry Helton”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Barry Helton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.