The man who marked up more points in basketball and called more plays in football than anyone in the history of sports at Salem High School, was inducted into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.

The late Herbert B. Davis, for 45 years an SCHS English and journalism instructor, was inducted in the category “Friends of Sports.” Mr. Davis was the official scorer at basketball games for many of those 45 years, including regular season, regional and sectional games, and was the voice of the Wildcats on the public address system at home football games.
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The 1941 Salem football team, North Egypt Conference champions with a 6-0 record, were deemed one of the best teams in the state.

In addition to winning the conference, the first ever outright title for Salem, the Wildcats compiled an 8-1 record, including a 13-12 win over Centralia in a classic “Battle of Marion County” contest. They were also invited to play in the first ever Shriner’s benefit football game, and were the cause of Centralia severing athletic relations with Salem.

Some of this group started the renaissance of Salem football as sophomores on a team that finished 7-1-1, including a 16-0 win over Centralia-the first ever in football for the Wildcats over Centralia. As juniors some of these players tied for the NEC crown with a 5-0-1 mark.
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Lettering three years in football, Bill Hooks had an exceptional year his senior season for the Salem Community High School football Wildcats, helping Salem to an 8-1 record. Hooks, attended Grinnell College in Iowa after graduation from high school, where he played two years of football.

He was the principal ball carrier on the 1946 Wildcat team, netting 1593 yards from scrimmage, scoring 22 touchdowns and kicking four extra points. He had two 5-touchdown games, one against Mt. Carmel which Salem won 73-0, and one against Olney in a 52-0 Salem victory. The 1946 Wildcats posted an 8-1 record, outscoring their opponents 21625, and out-gaining them from Scrimmage, 2594 yards to 1052. The only loss was 13-0 to Flora.

Hooks was an All-North Egypt Conference selection his senior year and gained All-State Special Mention. He had been an All-State honorable mention selectee his junior year. He was a fast, explosive runner, breaking for many long runs in his career. He also played defensive halfback. In 1947, he was named to the National Star Athletes Society, nominated by Athletic Director, M.E. Lenich.
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A 1950 SCHS graduate, who earned two varsity football letters at the University of Illinois, Bob Bishop was one of the kingpins of the line of the Salem team that compiled a 7-1-l record as Co-Champions of the North Egypt Conference.

An All-Conference guard in 1949, Bishop was also selected for All-State honors by the Champaign News-Gazette and the Chicago Daily News. He was selected to the 1939-49 SCHS “All-Decade” team picked in 1950.

Bishop played football all four years at the University of Illinois – on the freshman team in 1950, the JV team in 1951, and lettered with the varsity his junior and senior years. A member of the 1953 Big Ten champions, he was selected for the prestigious “George Huff Award for Scholarship and Athletics.”
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In 1947 Bill Larimer began his career as a sportswriter for the Salem Republican, predecessor of the Times-Commoner. This career was to span four decades ending with Larimer’s retirement in the Spring of 1977. It should be noted that when his career began it was on a voluntary basis. Later he not only wrote sports, but developed his own column, “Knothole News’ and became a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, the Decatur Herald and the St Louis Globe-Democrat.

When Larimer began writing, the sports program included football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and track and field in the spring. Baseball was added In the early 50′s, and golf, tennis and cross country were initiated later.

One of the major developments late in Larimer’s career was the beginning of girls’ athletics. Volleyball began in 1974; basketball in 1975; tennis and softball also started while Larimer was writing sports. Larimer strongly supported the development of a girls’ athletic program in his column “Knothole News”.
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It wasn’t an uncommon sight to see a kid tooling around town on his bicycle with a baseball mitt hooked on the handlebar, looking for a game. That “kid,” who always wanted to play professional baseball, missed participation in high school sports because in the early 1940′s Salem didn’t have a baseball program his sport He went on, though, to become one of the nation’s premier and most versatile sportcasters, Merle Harmon, a 1943 SCHS graduate, was inducted into the Salem High School
Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.

He broadcast major league baseball for 30 years, spending seven seasons as the voice of the Kansas City A’s prior to their departure for Oakland, two with the Milwaukee Braves, followed by three seasons with the Minnesota Twins and then back to Milwaukee to become the voice of the Milwaukee Brewers. Bob Uecker joined Harmon in the Brewer booth and over the next ten years they became one of the hottest broadcast teams in baseball.

Meanwhile, Harmon joined NBC Sports, first as an independent and then exclusively, and handled the Major League Baseball Game of the Week, NFL Football, NCAA Basketball and special assignments for Sportsworld. He was named as one of the anchors for the 1980 Olympic telecasts in Moscow but President Carter banned the U.S. teams from participating.

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