Former University of Portland Football Hall of Famer, Emmett Barrett, died Mon., May 2 at age 88.

Emmett Edward Barrett was born Nov. 7, 1916, in Sioux City, Iowa. The yearbook art editor and senior class vice president as a student, Barrett was also a resilient 168-pound center and linebacker for Matty Mathews’ Pilot Football teams (1937-1941). He was also an iron man, playing the entire 60 minutes of each of his final five collegiate games. One of his most satisfying memories was when, in 1940, Coach Matthews called him “the greatest center on the coast, bar none.”

Upon graduation, Emmett tried out for the National Football League’s New York Giants. He played that 1941 season with the Giants’ farm club, the Patterson Panthers, where his toughness caught the eye of Giants’ head-man Steve Owen who promoted him to the big club in 1942. His pro career was interrupted in 1943 by service in the Army and he concluded his playing days following the 1944 season. He vividly recalled a bone-jarring collision during the 1942 season with Washington’s Bullet Bill Dudley plus competitors and teammates that included NFL Hall of Famers Mel Hein, Tuffy Leemans, Jim Lee Howell, Sid Luckman, Don Hutson, Bulldog Turner and Sammy Baugh.

He returned to Portland in 1947 to begin a successful career in the insurance industry and later became president of Oregon Polytechnic Institute. He married Viola Bornhorst in 1944.

He was inducted into the University’s Hall of Fame in its fourth year of 1994. He is survived by his wife Viola (Bornhorst), of 61 years, daughters, Pat Lorenz, Kathy Swanberg, Betty Reinhardt and Maureen Horn; sons, Tom and Robert; and his 12 grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be at 10:30 a.m. Sat., May 7, 2005, in St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Portland. Recitation of the rosary will be at 7:00 p.m. Fri., May 6, in Zeller Chapel of the Roses.

Remembrances to a scholarship fund in his name at the University of Portland.