A hard-throwing right-hander who made sports history with five no-hitters, four in succession, Jerry Mercer led the Salem baseball team to a North Egypt Conference championship and to the sectional finals in the state elimination series. Mercer graduated from Salem Community High School in 1956.

Mercer, who had an 11-0 record in regular season action, opened with a 4-0, no-hit victory over Vandalia, striking out 18 batters. He walked one batter that game and then promptly picked him off at first. He next recorded an 8-0 no-hitter over Lawrenceville, also fanning 18. Then came a no-hit, 11-0 win over Centralia, with 13 strikeouts, and a 13-0 no-hitter over Olney, with 10 strikeouts. Both of those games were five-inning affairs. National recognition came after the fourth no-hitter with a two-page spread in Life magazine.
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A stalwart in the line of the Salem Wildcats North Egypt Conference football champion team of 1947 and the near-miss team of 1946, Bill Chance lettered in football, basketball and track at Salem Community High School.

He was a starting guard on the 1946 team that compiled an 8-1 record and on the 1947 championship team that went through the league schedule 6-0. He was an all-conference selection that year.

Chance was a member of the 1947-48 SCHS basketball team that compiled a 27-3 record and won the NEC championship with an 11-1 record.
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A team that generated high hopes for its followers and confirmed some of those hopes with a 23-5 record and a forth Egypt Conference Championship.

Although they opened and closed with losses, Coach Walt Kirk, Jr. , led his Wildcats, the “Knights of Marion County”, to 23 victories in the intervening 26 games while winning the NEC title with an 11-1 mark.

After the opening loss, Salem started a string of victories with an 81-66 win over Effingham with four players scoring in double figures led by Ed Perry’s 28 points, and following with a 52-51 win over Mt. Vernon as Jack Moore led with 16 points.
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Morris Steevens, a 1958 graduate, a fireballing left-hander excelled in four sports at Salem Community High School.

Steevens later pitched professionally for the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League.

Steevens started his high school pitching prowess with a four-hit shutout of Odin as a sophomore and also notched a four-hit victory over Centralia. During his junior year, he was the kingpin of the Wildcat pitching staff with five shutout victories, including a no-hit, 1-0 win over Flora. The Wildcats won their fourth straight North Egypt Conference championship that year and, with Steevens pitching a four-hitter, won the regional championship. During his senior year, Steevens combined with Jack Simmons and Billy Smith to pitch a 12-0, no-hit, win over Odin. Salem also won the district title that year, beating Centralia 4-2, with Steevens pitching a five hitter and contributing a two-run home run.
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Dr. Edward E. Perry, a four sports star in high school, whose basketball career started as a sixth grader with the junior varsity in junior high school and culminated as a three-time letter winner with the University of Illinois Fighting Illini.

Perry, who participated in basketball, baseball, football and track in high school, set records his senior year in high school in football and basketball. While basketball and football were his strongest sports in high school, he also lettered in baseball and track and was a member of the championship 880-yard relay team both his junior and senior years.
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A former three-sports star at Salem Community High School, whose athletic career has wound from high school and college, and has culminated with 30 years in the teaching and coaching field, Phillip “Butch” Newport was inducted into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.

Newport, a 1953 SCHS graduate, is a teacher and coach at Hollis Grade School at Bartonville. In 1989 his team placed fourth in the state in the Class A Division and he was named Division 4 Coach of the year.
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