William Harty

William Harty

Class of 1935

Sport(s): Tennis

Year Inducted: 2011

William Harty went to Bennett High School where he graduated at an early age. He attained All High honors in tennis in 1934 and In 1936 he was ranked 22nd nationally in the boys 18’s singles in the United States. He went from Bennett to Dartmouth College where he was captain and played first singles. After serving in Iran during WWII, in the Persian Gulf Command, he returned to Buffalo where he won the Niagara Frontier Tennis Championship – the forerunner to the MUNY Championships in 1946. Harty married Teckla Cederquist in 1946 and retired from competitive tennis, focusing on his work at The Exolon Company where he became president and worked until his retirement in 1980.

His life centered around his family, his friends, and his love of Buffalo where he helped raise his four boys, Donald, Douglas, Mark and Tom. (His son Mark, during high school, would rise at an ungodly hour and play tennis with another aficionado , fellow Bennett Hall of Famer, Charlie Garfinkel, where they would pound the courts at Amherst High School in the early hours of the morning..)

He shared his love of tennis with all his boys. Mark followed in his footsteps and captained the Dartmouth College tennis team.

William Harty passed away in 1981, leaving a tennis legacy as one of the finest tennis players to have ever played for Bennett High School.