Clay Stapleton

AMES, Iowa (AP) — Former Iowa State football coach and Florida State and Vanderbilt athletic director Clay Stapleton has died. Cyclones spokesman Mike Green said Stapleton's son, Van, notified the school that his father died Thursday morning in Marshall, Missouri. He was 93. Stapleton was the coach for the Cyclones from 1958 until 1967, compiling a record of 42-53-4. He's perhaps best known for coaching Iowa State's "Dirty Thirty" team in 1959, so named because they finished 7-3 despite having just 30 healthy players. "He was a man of outstanding integrity and honesty and character," said former Cyclones coach Johnny Majors, Stapleton's hand-picked successor at Iowa State. Stapleton retired from coaching in 1967 to become Iowa State's athletic director. Iowa State said he was instrumental in helping Jack Trice Stadium and Hilton Coliseum get built in the early 1970s. Stapleton was Florida State's athletic director from 1971-72. He led Vanderbilt's athletic department from 1973-78 and notably hired Steve Sloan, who took the Commodores to their first bowl game in nearly 20 years in 1974. Stapleton was raised in Fleming, Kentucky, and he played at Tennessee. Stapleton began his coaching career at Wofford College and was an assistant at Wyoming and Oregon State, where he helped the Beavers earn back-to-back trips to the Rose Bowl. The Cyclones went 4-6 in Stapleton's first season. But Iowa State had its first winning season in a decade the following year and won seven games as well in 1960. Former Ohio State coach John Cooper played for Stapleton for three seasons, and he credits Stapleton for encouraging him to get into coaching. Majors led the Cyclones to bowl games in 1971 and 1972 before winning a national championship in 1976 with Pittsburgh. "You could trust him. You could believe what he said. He was honest. He was very loyal to me, plain and simple, as a head coach who worked under him and answered to him. And I was real loyal to him because I appreciated what he stood for," Majors said.