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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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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A forerunner of the now essential “big man” in basketball, Dean White, was a key member of the 1943 Salem Community High School basketball team that won third place in the state tournament.

White participated in football, basketball and track three years at SCHS. He was a member of the North Egypt Conference football championship teams of 1940 and 1941. Salem was second to Flora in 1942 as the 13-0 Flora victory was Salem’s only conference loss that season. In White’s three years of football, Salem had a 16-1-1 conference record, with only one touchdown scored against them in NEC play in 1941.
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In college, his basketball coach called him “Mr. Hustle” and in high school and college he was always “Mr. Persistent”. Morris H. “Mush” Sterneck, a 1951 SCHS graduate, went on to serve as captain of the University of Illinois basketball team during the 1954-55 season.

Sterneck participated in basketball and track during his high school years, and participated in basketball and baseball at the University of Illinois. He was a consistent and game-wise player on the basketball court, on the baseball field, and on the track.

He exemplified his “persistent” tag in track. On a particularly rainy, cold day during a North Egypt Conference meet, Sterneck ran “his” race and won the mile run by doggedly staying in his routine. The time wasn’t nearly as good as the effort but he won the race.

Sterneck was a member of the Fighting Illini varsity basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, his sophomore year, he was a teammate of Hall of Famer Jim Bredar, a senior, who was captain that year.

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Mike Benchoff was a three sport star while in high school. He was a key defensive back on the 1953 SCHS football team that compiled an 8-1 record and outscored their opponents 348-65. The team capped their season with a 55-13 win over South Seven Conference champion, Mt Vernon.

Benchoff, who is now a trial lawyer in Phoenix, Arizona, is a graduate of Notre Dame and has been honored as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Benchoff was bracketed with Eddie Murray and Phil “Butch” Newport in the backfield during his junior year before an injury sidelined him for the remainder of the year. As a senior, he was the free safety on the outstanding 1953 team that allowed only 10 touchdowns and recorded three shutouts in their eight victories that included a 19-6 victory over arch rival Centralia.
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