The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference celebrated its centennial July 10 with a standing-room-only crowd of more than 500 at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs.

The RMAC, founded in March 1909, is the fourth-oldest conference in the country, trailing only the Big Ten, Missouri Valley and Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Conferences. The RMAC  is the oldest current member of NCAA Division II and the longest-standing league in the Western U.S.

As part of the celebration, the league honored more than 200 of the best student-athletes and coaches who have participated in the conference, including former Olympic runners Pat Porter of Adams State and Elva Dryer and Michael Aish of Western State. Former Metro State men’s basketball coach Mike Dunlap, now associate head coach at Oregon, was honored, as were former NFL players Don Cockroft (Adams State) and Herman Heard (Southern Colorado, now Colorado State-Pueblo).

Among honorees celebrated posthumously were former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron “Whizzer” White from the University of Colorado (all-RMAC in 1936 and 1937); gold medal winner Glenn Morris from Colorado Agricultural College (now Colorado State), who was all-RMAC in 1932, 1933 and 1934; and Earl “Dutch” Clark of Colorado College, a member of both the Pro and College Football Halls of Fame.

See the RMAC Web site for more awards.