GUNNISON, Colo.  The coach of one of the most successful football teams in Western State College history, O.Kay Dalton, passed away on August 22, 2022, at the age of 90.

Dalton – inducted into the Western athletics Hall of Fame in 2008 – arrived at Western in in 1961, coming to the western slope following a stint as head coach for Trinidad State Junior College.

The Mountaineer program had struggled in the years prior, but Dalton – with assistant coaches Bill Shanahan, Ollie Woods and Tracy Borah – soon turned the program around.

Dalton and his staff ran a very challenging spring practice schedule and not all the players participating stayed through its end. Dalton declared at the conclusion of the spring, "we only had 18 players left, but they were all football players."

Filling in the roster was a specialty of Dalton who was known to scour the nation for players to compose a squad that emphasized defense and the running game.

The peak of "Dalton's Gang" were the 1964 Mountaineers, who posted a 9-0 record and were selected to play in the postseason's Mineral Bowl against North Dakota State for the small-college Division II national championship.

A barnburner of a game, Western eventually fell to the Bison, 14-13, a score that would have been different had Western's Clyde Wilson's punt return for a touchdown not been called back because of a penalty.

During his stint at Western his program won three consecutive Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference titles (1963, 1964, 1965). Each of those three seasons included just one loss, with the combined deficit of those three defeats totaling just 15 points.

Dalton moved on from Western following the 1965 season, continuing a successful coaching career first as head coach of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League, then later leading the British Columbia Lions. He later coached in the NFL as an assistant with the Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos, and Kansas City Chiefs.

He returned to the college ranks after the NFL, initially joining the staff at his alma mater, Colorado State University, and moving on to the University of Northern Colorado as the offensive coordinator for two seasons before taking over as head coach for six seasons (2000-2005).

Dalton is also a Hall of Fame inductee at both Colorado State and at UNC.

A memorial service for Dalton will be held on Sept. 23 at the University of Northern Colorado's campus commons.