Saskatchewan Roughriders great Dale West, one of the most gifted athletes in our province’s history, passed away on Tuesday morning in Regina after a battle with cancer. He was 84.
A 1997 inductee into the Saskatchewan Roughrider Plaza of Honour, the Cabri-born, Saskatoon-raised West was enshrined in the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame (1988) and Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame (1989).
West joined the Roughriders in 1962 after excelling at Bedford Road Collegiate in Saskatoon, the University of Arizona and the University of Saskatchewan.
He enjoyed a breakthrough season in 1963, registering 10 interceptions — then a team record — and returning them 226 yards. The yardage total is still a Saskatchewan single-season standard.
In 1963, West was named the Western Conference’s Most Outstanding Canadian. That was also the first of three consecutive Canadian Football League seasons in which he was a conference All-Star.
West remained with the Green and White through the 1968 season. He retired after playing in 106 regular-season games — all in his home province.
“That really made it significant,” West reflected in a 2023 interview with Riderville.com. “Where else would you want to do it?”
Long before becoming a mainstay with the Roughriders, he was a prominent figure in sporting circles.
Consider his accomplishments while representing Bedford Road during the 1958-59 scholastic year.
In the fall of 1958, West rushed for 1,434 yards and amassed 134 points for the Bedford Road football team.
The following spring, he completed the 100-yard dash in a record time of 9.8 seconds to win the senior boys sprint title at the 1959 Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association track and field championships.
The 9.8-second clocking was unchallenged into the 1970s. Once the metric system was implemented and the standard sprint distance was changed to 100 metres, West’s 100-yard time became a permanent standard.
His speed was well-established by the early 1950s.
At age 10, West was Saskatchewan’s bantam boys speed skating champion. In 1960, he was named an alternate for Canada’s Olympic speed skating team.
One year earlier, West had been an alternate for the Canadian track team that had participated in the Pan American Games.
“I got to be a darned good alternate,” West joked in a 2006 interview.
Versatility also served him well in the CFL. He excelled on offence and defence early in his pro football career.
In 1962, he caught 13 passes for 306 yards — an average of 23.6 yards per catch — and three touchdowns.
West’s second CFL reception was for a 79-yard touchdown, on Sept. 12, 1962 against the Montreal Alouettes at Taylor Field. His second score was a 47-yarder against the visiting Ottawa Rough Riders on Oct. 13, 1962.
His first of 17 career interceptions followed on Oct. 22, 1962, against the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Then came 1963 — a season in which he averaged 26.7 yards every time he touched the football on offence and defence.
Entrenched as the starting safety, he averaged 22.6 yards over 10 interception returns. He added five catches for 174 yards as a receiver, scoring three times.
West’s varied skills were accentuated on Sept. 21, 1963 at Taylor Field, against the visitors from Edmonton.
Ron Lancaster engineered his first of 50 comebacks as the Roughriders’ starting quarterback by leading the team on a 16-play, 109-yard drive. The capper was an eight-yard TD pass to West with 1:35 remaining in the fourth quarter. Reg Whitehouse’s convert gave Saskatchewan an 8-7 lead that would hold up for the duration — with West making another immense contribution.
Edmonton’s last-chance drive was extinguished when West registered a victory-clinching interception on Saskatchewan’s 33-yard line.
Also of note on Sept. 21, 1963: Hugh Campbell made his debut as a member of the Roughriders’ receiving corps.
The arrival of Campbell, who would become one of the great receivers in franchise history, soon allowed West to devote all his time to his responsibilities at safety.
Anchored at that position, he intercepted Ottawa’s Russ Jackson during the first quarter of the 1966 Grey Cup Game and took off on a 37-yard return. Two plays after West was tackled on the nine-yard line, Lancaster hit a wide-open Jim Worden for the Roughriders’ first touchdown in their 29-14 victory.
The good-humoured West was always quick to point out that he was the closest defender on both Ottawa touchdowns — long passes from Jackson to Whit Tucker.
West often joked that the score should have been “Saskatchewan 29, West 14,” downplaying his integral role in the Roughriders’ 29-14 victory.
Fifty-six years after the franchise’s inception as the Regina Rugby Club, there was a long-awaited national championship celebration.
The revelry followed the Green and White’s first Grey Cup appearance in 15 years. Saskatchewan had qualified for the 1951 national final by defeating Edmonton 19-18 to capture the Western Interprovincial Football Union title. West and his father, Ken, were in the stands at Taylor Field for that Nov. 12, 1951 game.
“The next time they were in a Grey Cup, I was playing in it,” West remarked in 2006.
In the 1966 Grey Cup Game, West was playing despite a shoulder injury that had forced him to miss a portion of the season. The injury continued to bother him in 1967 and 1968.
Nearing 28 at the time, West announced his retirement from football on June 12, 1969.
To this day, he is one of only four Roughriders with at least 10 interceptions in a season. Terry Irvin set the current record of 11 in 1984. West, Ken McEachern (1980) and Ed Gainey (2017) each had a 10-interception season.
When West stepped away from football, he was teaching at Regina’s Connaught School and in the early stages of an accomplished career in education that would last 31 years. He eventually became a vice-principal.
West combined his passion for sports while coaching scholastic volleyball, basketball and football.
After retiring as an educator, he served three terms on the Regina Public School Board.
He was also the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame’s program co-ordinator for seven years.
But those contributions, while varied and extensive, don’t compare to his feat of April 11, 2004.
While in Kelowna to celebrate the 90th birthday of his mother, Norma, West applied the Heimlich manoeuvre and saved the life of a man who was choking on a large chunk of meat at a restaurant.
“Thank heaven Dale was in the restaurant,” the establishment’s manager, Brad Attwood, told the Regina Leader-Post two days after the life-saving manoeuvre.
West is survived by his wife (Joan), four children (Rae, Kelly, Ryan and Tim) and nine grandchildren (Dylan, Colin, Brynn, Jensen, Marcus, Estelle, Emmy, Molly and Sienna).
Like his father, Tim was a proud alumnus of the U of S Huskies. Tim, an offensive lineman who played high school football for the Sheldon-Williams Spartans, helped the Huskies reach the Vanier Cup in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
Dale and Joan rarely, if ever, missed one of Tim’s games.
