Devastating. No one word can better summarize the 1965 West Chester football season. For the second year in a row, the Golden Rams opened the season 0-2 with losses to East Carolina and East Stroudsburg. But it was
then that devastation struck. With West Chester leading the visiting Millersville Marauders by a score of 6-0 early in the second quarter, Head Coach Jim Bonder collapsed on the sidelines. The game was stopped for several minutes while medical staff attended to him and ultimately rushed him to the hospital. West Chester would go on to win the game 33-6, but then learned in the locker room that their head coach had died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 51. In a little over five seasons at the helm at West Chester, Bonder amassed a record of 39-9 for an .813 winning percentage, the highest ever among Golden Ram coaches with at least ten games coached.
Under new Head Coach Bob Mitten, the Golden Rams would sweep the remainder of the PSAC East division games - Bloomsburg, Kutztown, Mansfield and Cheyney - losing only at Villanova for a final record of 5-3. The team was very young - 24 sophomores and 18 upperclassmen. Sophomore Roger Grove was the team's leading rusher and classmate Jim Haynie threw for 1,120 yards and seven touchdowns. Both are members of the
Killinger Football Hall of Fame. Providing senior leadership was end Dan Ferguson who was the only Golden Ram named to the All-PSAC team. That year, the conference didn't select separate teams for each division nor was a second team identified.
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