The coach who brought “Old Patience” into the Salem High School trophy case by coaching the first Salem football team to defeat arch-rival Centralia, was inducted into the newly formed Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame.

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.

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The generally recognized “first” full-time football coach for the Salem Wildcats and the coach of Salem’s first district basketball champion was among the first to be Inducted into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame. 

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.
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