In tandem with Jim Bredar, as the “Gold Dust Twins”, Frala started on a road to successful ventures in the sports world in football, basketball and track as a member of Wildcat athletic teams.

After graduation, he attended the University of Illinois, concentrating on the coaching aspects of sports. While at Illinois, Illini Coach Ray Eliot said that “Bob Frala has one of the most comprehensive notebooks on football I have received from all of my classes.”

In high school, Frala was a halfback for the Wildcats, netting 5 yards per carry his senior year on a team that was 5-5 overall and 4-2 in North Egypt Conference play. He also completed 18 of 24 passes for 526 yards. In the final two games that were dramatically won on the margin of Jim Bredar’s placements, 13-12 over Lawrenceville and 14-13 over Mt Vernon, Frala touchdowns were prominent in the victories.

In the Lawrenceville win, he scored the second touchdown that set the stage for the winning extra point, and in the Mt. Vernon victory in the finale, he passed to Corky Winn for 31 yards for the first touchdown, and scored the second from seven yards out. In basketball, on a team that lacked anyone much over six feet tall, Frala was a perfect tandem with Bredar and with Bob Hayden, Derrell Brame and Winn.

He was also a consistent performer in track. In his senior year in the NEC meet, he won the 200-yard low hurdle race in :25.6 despite taking a face-first tumble in his qualifying heat, which he won easily, exemplifying his determination.

After graduation from the University of Illinois, he entered the military service. While stationed at Virginia Beach, he coached base teams in football and basketball; both teams won the National All-Army titles. Fellow SCHS teammate Jim Bredar was a member of the championship basketball team.

Frala got his first high school teaching job in Skokie in 1956. He went to Belleville in 1960 as a teacher and coach and his teams won 83% of their games. In 1964, he was named Illinois Coach of the Year and selected as All-State team coach.

He left Belleville in 1967 to join the coaching staff of Dan Devine at the University of Missouri as freshman coach and assistant quarterback coach. He worked with Devine for five years and for two years with Al Onofrio. While at Missouri, he was one of the head recruiters, and as freshman coach they won 85% of their games.

Frala lives in Moberly, Missouri, with his wife, former Salemite Erma Sechrest. They have three children, all grown, Jim, Kathy and Julie. He is the son of the late James C. and Lola Frala, for whom Salem’s little League park “Frala Park” was named. He has two younger brothers, Jim and Don.

A 1930 graduate of Salem High School during which time he participated in football and track, Coach Thurman installed the split-T formation in 1952 for the first time in Salem. During his seven seasons as football coach, the Wildcats won two North Egypt Conference crowns, finished second five times and ended with a 35-7-2 NEC mark and a 42-19-2 overall record. Thurman-coached teams won the championship in 1952 and again in 1956.

Although they finished second in 1953, losing to Lawrenceville 19-18 in the opener. Salem went on to eight straight wins, capping a record-setting 348-point season with a resounding 55-13 romp over Mt. Vernon in the finale.

Thurman took over as basketball coach following the Salem Invitational Tournament in 1951 and the Wildcats went on to win their North Egypt games in February to win the Conference title. In the next to the last game. Salem won over Lawrenceville by 10 points to assure a tie. They then beat Mt Carmel the next Friday by 20 points to gain the championship. In earlier games that year, Lawrenceville and Mt Carmel had defeated the Wildcats in overtime games.

He took over as head track coach in 1954 and Wildcat teams won Conference title in 1957 and 1958, a sport that had been dominated by Lawrenceville and Bridgeport in prior years. Salem had won back-to- back crowns in 1946 and 1947. Therefore, Thurman-coached teams won five NEC titles in the span of seven years.

In high school he ran the 220 and 440 in track, lettering three years and was the No. 1 sprinter in 1929 and 1930. He lettered as a guard in 1928 and 1929 and was chosen to the All-Conference Football Team in 1929. Mt Vernon and Centralia were conference members then.

Thurman entered SIU in the fall of 1931 and lettered in football in 1932. He left school after two years with a teaching certificate and taught in rural one-room schools for five years.

In 1938, he was hired at Oak Park Grade School where he taught and coached until he was named assistant football coach at SCHS in 1943. After World War II he returned to Oak Park as principal and was called back to SCHS as assistant football and assistant basketball coach in 1951.

His last basketball team at Oak Park, in 1947-48, had a 22-2 record probably still a Salem record. Some of those boys were involved in the NEC championship in 1952.

In addition to installing the split-T formation, he installed the spread punt formation (also in 1952) which allowed a quick release for all linemen and resulted in low punt return yardage. In 1956, the Wildcats under Thurman began using a pro-set offense. Also, while football coach he coached freshman basketball. The Wildcats retired the first Shrine football trophy involving Centralia (a best 3 out of 5 series) with their third win in 1955.

As one erstwhile sportswriter called him, “the Radar Kid,” Bredar scored 422 points his senior year, as the Wildcats finished with an 18-9 record. That team had a 14-6 record in regular season play, uniquely 7-3 at home and 7-3 on the road.

Bredar went on to the University of Illinois where he played four years with the Illini, starting at guard as a junior on the team that finished third in the NCAA tournament after winning the 1951-52 Big Ten title. He captained the 1952-53 team that finished second in the Big Ten to NCAA champion Indiana. He was given All-America honorable mention honors in 1952 and named second team All-America in 1953. He was also named second team All Big Ten in 1953.

He played briefly with the Ft. Wayne Pistons of the NBA and toured with the Harlem Globetrotters, providing the opposition for the Globetrotters in their exhibitions. Many Salem fans saw him play in that series when they played exhibitions in St. Louis. Before joining the Globetrotter tour, Bredar and some fellow Illini toured the state playing exhibitions. In an exhibition here, the Illinoisans beat the Starr Bros. team of Mt. Vernon, 100-69, with Bredar scoring 24 points.

After two years in the Army, he returned to the University of Illinois to get his Master’s degree in geology. While working on his Master’s he helped Illinois coach Harry Combes and former assistant coach, Howie Braun, coach and did some scouting and recruiting. He was also head freshman coach for two years.

While in the military service, he was captain of the Virginia Beach base team that won the National All-Army title. Coincidentally, that team was coached by his high school teammate and buddy, Bob Frala. So the “Gold Dust Twins,” as they were sometimes referred to in high school, carried on.

An outstanding student-athlete, Bredar was named Salem’s Outstanding Citizen in 1952, only the second former SCHS athlete to be accorded that honor.

He also made an impact with the 1948 Wildcat football team as a kicker. His place kicks were the margin of victory in the final two games of the season, 13-12, over Lawrenceville, and 14-13 over Mt. Vernon.

Jim is married and he and his wife have two children, a daughter, Carrie and a son, Jamie. His mother, Marie, sister, Ann (Mrs. Jack Woods), and brother, Frank, live here.

That team, posting a 27-7 record while winning the third place honors, also won the North Egypt Conference title, the regional championship (50-40 over Centralia) and the sectional championship.

Coached by Quinn Constantz, in his first and only year at Salem, the team was composed of Roy Gatewood, Harry Carneal, Dean White, John McDougal, John Baker, Bob Roddy, Francis Meador, Don Wile, Jim Finks, Bob Laney and Jim Kneale. Unfortunately, five of those players are deceased-Carneal, Finks, Gatewood, Meador and White.

Gatewood’s exploits are well known-setting the single game scoring mark of 29 points against Elgin in the third place game, and a record-setting 96 points for the four games – but in the Champaign overtime victory, 49-46, McDougal, the usual play-maker on the team, brought the crowd to the edge of their seats with several bursts of speed to net 11 points.

Salem made a startling comeback in their opener to win on Gatewood’s last second shot, 49-47. Roddy started it with a 10 footer. After Canton scored, Salem rattled off 14 straight points to gain the victory. Gatewood got seven in succession. White banged in a rebound. Gatewood hit two more free throws and McDougal hit a free throw for a 47-47 tie to set the stage for Gatewood’s winning basket.

After losing the heart-breaker to Paris, 53-50 (a team they lost to in the second game of the season, 50-26), Salem won the third place trophy handily, 69-58 over Elgin. Paris went on to win the state championship.

Constantz, a native of Canton, Missouri, at 25 was the youngest coach in the state tournament. He had won 28 of 32 games at the Missouri school. Dr. Constantz retired from Western Carolina University at Cullowhee, North Carolina, and cinematographer for the WCU football team.

The 1942-43 Wildcats won the North Egypt championship with a 11-1 record and had to beat Mt. Carmel and Lawrenceville a third time to win the sectional tournament to gain the “sweet sixteen” berth.

Before the basketball season unfolded, the players formed a pretty formidable football team, opening with a 45-6 win over Lawrenceville and 27-0 victory over Bridgeport. After a 13-0 loss to Flora, that possibly cost them a NEC championship “double,” Salem rolled over Fairfield, 53-0, only to learn that their coach Steve Lenich, had been called to military service.

Being during the war years, games with Mt Carmel and Newton were canceled, both to be played in Salem, because of transportation problems, mainly due to gasoline shortages and rationing. In fact, the IHSA toured the state during the basketball season to determine if any member schools were considering canceling their season or any part of it.

That Salem was able to fulfill its scheduling commitments and travel to the state tournament was due in part to three Salem basketball devotees. With rationing and transportation crunches, the Salem team made the state tournament trek by private cars.