John McDougal, was the smallest but most spectacular player in that 1943 tournament. As a junior, he was the playmaker for Quinn Constanz’s team and was given honorable mention on the all-tourney team.

McDougal lettered in football, basketball and track his sophomore and junior years at SCHS and was in the military service his senior year. A native of Okmulgee, Oklahoma, he moved to Salem when he was 12. He married the former Betty Anne Meyers and they are the parents of three daughters, Rebecca, Mary, and Nancy.

After three years service in the navy during World War II, McDougal entered the University of Evansville where he was an outstanding halfback, lettering 3 years. He played on three teams that participated in and won the Refrigerator Bowl. In that game in 1947, Evansville defeated Northern Illinois. He also lettered In track at Evansville.

During his senior year at Evansville, he was the recipient of the Kiwanis Football Award. In 1961, McDougal was selected to the UE Hall of Fame.

After graduation, he embarked on his illustrious coaching career. In 26 years on the high school level, McDougal’s teams compiled a won-lost record of 480-203. His high school coachings took him from Palestine to Carmi to Mt. Prospect Aurora West. Where he remained for 11 years before being named head coach of the Northern Illinois University Huskies.

At Aurora, McDougal’s Blackhawks captured four Upstate Eight Conference, six regional and three sectional crowns, and placed among Illinois’ top four teams on two occasions. Just 10 days before his appointment at Northern Illinois, Aurora West dropped the Class AA title game in a basket-at-the-buzzer, 45-44 setback to Chicago Morgan Park.

In eight seasons at NIU, the McDougal-coached Huskies had a 110·112 record, finishing as Mid-American Conference co-champions In 1981. In i982, the Huskies look the championship of the MAC Post-season Tournament and gained a spot In the NCAA Midwest Regional.

In McDougal’s first year at NIU, he transformed the same players from a 5-21 ball club into conference contenders. Picked in MAC pre-season polls to finish last. NIU held the loop lead until February 23, finished with a 13-14 overall record, and McDougal was chosen as MAC Coach of the Year.

After retiring from the college coaching ranks, McDougal returned to the high school level for a successful tenure Rockford Lutheran.

Van F. Howe was the coach of the 1939 Wildcat team that scored a 16-0 victory over Centralia, the first ever over their Marion County rivals. A1928 graduate of Salem High School, Howe graduated from the University of Illinois in 1933 and started an illustrious coaching career in 1935 at Salem as an assistant in football, basketball and track.

His first season as head football coach of the Wildcats resulted in a 0-7 record but after that, from 1938-1942, his football teams posted a 24-8-3 record. Before entering the U.S. Navy in 1943, where he served 2-1/2 years as a gunnery officer in the North Atlantic, he was head football, swimming and track coach at Illinois Wesleyan University.

After naval service, Howe returned to Wesleyan as track coach for a half year before a two-year stint as head football and baseball coach and assistant in basketball at DeKalb High School.

In 1948, he moved to Decatur where he was head football and track coach for 8 years. His teams won two “Big 12″ conference championships in football and track. During his last four seasons at Decatur, his teams suffered only two conference losses in football.

In 1956, Howe moved west, with five years as assistant football coach at the University of Arizona. In 1961, he moved to Pueblo High School in Tucson as assistant coach.

In 1962, Howe became football coach at Palo Verde High School in Tucson, where he remained until he retired after 36-1/2 years of active coaching. He was named Arizona high school Coach of the Year in 1973-74 and his Palo Verde team, with a 13-0 record, won the Arizona large school state championship.

In addition to being the coach of the first Salem team to beat Centralia, other “firsts” in Howe’s career were coach of the first Salem team to win a North Egypt Conference football championship in 1940 and again in 1941; the first DeKalb baseball team to win a conference championship; the first Decatur football team to win a “Big 12″ championship; first Palo Verde (Arizona) football team to win a league, division, and state championship; and the first Tucson area football team to win 13 games in one season.

Other memorable occasions in Howe’s coaching career include being chosen to lecture at the U of I Football Coaches Clinic in 1953, lecturing at U of A Football Coaches Clinic in 1974, and coaching a “battered and out-manned” Illinois Wesleyan team in upsetting highly touted Bradley University in Peoria in 1942, a game in which, as Howe says, “ex-SHS star Bill Finks played a major role.”

The late Roy Gatewood, a 1943 graduate of Salem Community High School, set the single game scoring record of 29 points for the state tournament in 1943, a record that only held for one year, but
poured in 96 points in the tournament, a record that stood for several years. Roy, given credit for originating the jump shot, so prevalent in present-day basketball, was named to the all-state basketball
team In 1943.

Roy attended the University of Illinois from 1946-1949 where he played basketball with the Fighting Illini.. Upon graduation, he coached basketball at Fairfield for 3 years and was basketball coach at Mt. Carmel from 1954-58. He died suddenly in 1961.

In high school, he was a three-sports star, excelling in football and track as well as basketball. He was named to the all-state football team selected by the Chicago Daily News in 1940. During his freshman and sophomore years in high school, he was coached by Mike Lenich, whom he gave much credit for his success.

In 1983, Roy was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame.

Upon graduation from high school, he entered the military service during World War II for three years, and served in the China-Burma-India theater of operations with the Petroleum Engineers.

He married the former Doris Farthing in 1946 and they had twin daughters, Mrs. Rae Gruenkemeyer and Mrs. Gae Reynolds.

Jim Finks, a 1945 graduate of SCHS, was named to both the Champaign News-Gazette and the Chicago Daily News All-State teams his senior year. During the 1944 football season, with Salem compiling an 8-1 record, Finks scored 100 points, had 2107 yards of total offense (rushing for 1332 yards), passing for nine touchdowns. He was the team’s punter, averaging 43.2 yards per kick on 22 punts.

In basketball, Finks was team captain his senior year and scored 795 points his final two years. As a sophomore, he was a member of the 1943 Wildcat team that captured third place honors in the state tournament. In 1944, his junior year, the Wildcats reached the sectional finals before bowing out, the last time that Salem has won a regional tournament.

Excellence and honors continued at Tulsa University. His sophomore year, he carried a 37 yard punting
average, a 15.8 yard average on kick-off returns, was second in team passing, with a 55·yard scoring strike to help defeat Wichita University, and was a defensive star, once blocking an extra point try to preserve a 14-13 Tulsa victory over Arkansas.

As a junior, as first team quarterback, Finks hit 10 of 15 passes to net a 30-22 win for Tulsa over Detroit, scored the lone touchdown in a 7-0 win over Wichita, and was ranked 7th nationally in total offense with 1159 yards. He was selected as quarterback on the Missouri Valley Conference All-Conference Team.

During his senior year, Finks completed 115 passes for 1376 yards, second highest in the nation, was chosen to participate in the East-West Shrine game on New Year’s Day, completing a touchdown pass for the West in a 14-13 loss. Again he was selected Missouri Valley Conference All-Conference Quarterback, and was given the University President’s Award “as the most unselfish and best spirited member of the Tulsa team.”

In basketball he set the Individual Tulsa scoring mark with 28 points against Drake In 1947.

Finks broke into the National Football League In 1949 as a rookie quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Being a T-formation quarterback at Tulsa and being with a team still employing a single-wing offense, he found himself defending passes. From 1949-51, Finks was a regular in the Steeler secondary.

In 1952, when the Steelers converted to the T-formation, Finks switched back to quarterback. In 1953, he joined Otto Graham as the Eastern Conference quarterbacks in the Pro Bowl. Finks left the pro game to coach Notre Dame’s 1956 backfield under Terry Brennan.

Finks scouted for Calgary in the Canadian League the following season and took over as general manager of the Stampeeders in 1957. He remained at Calgary until moving to Minnesota as the Vikings GM in 1964.

In 10 years with Minnesota in the NFL, Finks brought the Vikings to their first Super Bowl (1970). He
remained with the Vikings through the 1973 season, then tendered his resignation following Minnesota’s second Super Bowl in January 1974. In 1968, he was on the first NFL negotiating committee that met with the Player’s Association.

Finks joined the Chicago Bears September 12, 1974, as executive vice president, general manager and chief operating officer, resigning following the 1983 season. Shortly thereafter, he was named President of the Chicago Cubs of the National League after the Chicago Tribune took over the club from the Wrigley family.

Finks headed the Cub organization through their banner 1984 season when the Cubs won the National League East Division title. He resigned after the 1984 season. Finks was named president and general manager of the New Orleans Saints in 1986, and brought them from the doldrums to a contender roll, making the play offs in 1988.

Finks was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1995.

Fred H. Corray, was coach of all sports in 1926 and remained until 1932. While Salem had played five football games the preceding year, with a 2-2-1 record, in their first full season under Coach Corray they complied a 7-3-0 record.

Prior to the 16-0 win in 1939 under Van Howe, the nearest thing to a victory over Centralia in football was a 6-6 tie in 1929 under Coach Corray. 1929 featured four tie games in a 5-1-4 season with the other three being scoreless deadlocks with Mt Vernon, Carlyle and Pana.

A 1926 University of Illinois graduate, Mr. Corray had a varied and interesting pre-university career coaching basketball at Sidney High School, a three-year school. At Sidney, he
had a 6’6″ center, Henry Witt and designed the first “Alley Oop” play. In a game against Tolono, Witt scored 33 baskets, a remarkable feat for basketball in the 1920′s.

At the University of Illinois, Mr. Corray had football coaching instruction from the legendary Bob Zuppke and Milt Olander; basketball under Craig Boby, longtime Illini coach, and
“Piggy” Lambert famed Purdue coach; baseball under Carl Lundgren,longtime Illinois coach; and track under Harry Gill. In his senior year, he was put in charge of the Illinois freshmen
football team.

After leaving Salem, while in business with his brother in Champaign-Urbana, he became football and basketball announcer for all University of Illinois games on WILL and remained
at that post for 17 years. During that period, he also broadcast the Illinois High School State Tournament games held In Huff Gymnasium, the only link many fans had to the games. In
1969, the U of I “I” Men’s Association honored him for outstanding service to U of I athletics.

While at Salem, he was the first to organize PE classes, originated and aided lettermen in the formation of “S” Club. With no money in the school budget for lockers in the dressing rooms, he staged a “business men’s” basketball game and raised the funds. He also solicited funds for backstops and softball equipment and made himself available so that students could play softball before school and at noon, and arranged for the gym to be open during winter months so non-athletes could play basketball.

Mr. Corray also coached basketball and track. His 1927-28 basketball team won the first “district” tournament for Salem in the State elimination series back when the scheme of things was a set-up of “district-sectional-state” tournaments.

A unique distinction for Mr. Corray was the formation of the “Corray Club” by former players and students which held its first meeting in 1938. It became an annual event looked forward to by former Salem athletes and students of the Corray era and, in some instances, children of former athletes, and Mr. Corray.