Perry Hartnett
player of American football

Perry Edmond Hartnett (born April 28, 1960) is an American former professional football player who was a guard in the National Football League (NFL) and United States Football League (USFL). He played college football for the SMU Mustangs. He was a member of the Chicago Bears, Buffalo Bills and Green Bay Packers in the NFL, while being with the Chicago Blitz and Baltimore Stars in the USFL. Hartnett played 12 NFL games, five as a starter, in addition to 16 USFL games in his career.
Early life
Hartnett was born on April 28, 1960, in Galveston, Texas. He attended Ball High School in Galveston; he was the ninth alumni of the school to play in the NFL. He became a starter for the football team at tackle as a sophomore. He reportedly appeared to have little hope of continuing his football career as a junior, weighing only 218 pounds (99 kg), but increased in size to 265 pounds (120 kg) as a senior and began receiving attention. The magazine Dave Campbell's Texas Football named him the top lineman in the state in an article previewing the 1977 season, Hartnett's senior year, and at the end of the season, he was selected Adidas All-American, All-District, and honorable mention All-American by National High School Athletic Coaches. He committed to play college football for the SMU Mustangs.
College career
Hartnett married his wife, Donna, the day before football practice began in his freshman year at Southern Methodist University (SMU). He did not play his first year, 1978, and nearly quit as a sophomore in 1979, but his wife convinced him to stay.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Perry Hartnett” is player of American football. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Perry, Hartnett and player, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7169797. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1960, 1977, 1978 and 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “Perry Hartnett” 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.