The Salem coach who changed the complexion of the game for Wildcat football followers and the only coach to win conference titles in the three major sports, Howard G. Thurman, had a tie-in and, as he said, “a love affair with,” Salem sports that spanned seven decades.

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.

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The oil industry brought Salem some fine athletes and one of the finest was a hard running fullback that earned the nickname, “The Bull Moose.” Don Wile, who graduated from Salem Community High School in 1944 and participated in football, basketball and track, was an inductee of 1986 into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame.

Wile was the scoring leader on the outstanding 1943 team that had only a 7-7 tie with Benton to otherwise mar a perfect season. That 1943 team gained world-wide attention with the 188-0 win over Fairfield in which Wile scored 88 points. Football was Wile’s strongest sport, lettering four years.

After graduation from high school, he attended Evansville College for one year, lettering in football as a halfback. He transferred to Tulsa University where he lettered his sophomore and junior years. He devoted his senior year to studies only.

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A 1986 inductee into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame earned the nickname of “The Battering Ram” in powering the Salem Wildcats to a North Egypt Conference Championship in 1941 and to a 13-12 victory over Centralia in the well-publicized “Battle of Marion County.” Bob Scoles, a 1942 graduate of Salem Community High School, was named to the Champaign News-Gazette All-State Team his senior year.

Twice a unanimous first team choice for all North Egypt Conference honors, Scoles’ senior year was particularly outstanding as the Wildcats finished with an 8-1 record and won the championship with a 6-0 mark. The year before the Wildcats had tied with Flora for conference top honors, each with 5-0-1 marks, tying 7-7 in their head-to-head meeting.

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One of Salem’s most successful football coaches, Kenneth E. Farrar, now retired, coached Salem Wildcat teams from 1943-1951, the football teams compiling a 62-18-2 record. With a North Egypt Conference record of 458-1, Farrar-coached Wildcat teams captured four North Egypt Conference championships.

Salem teams in Farrar’s first two seasons were 12-0 in conference play, netting back-to-back crowns. Overall those two years, Salem’s record was 15-1-1.

Only a 7-7 tie marred an otherwise perfect season in 1943, but one game that year vaulted the Wildcats into world-wide prominence. With so many Salem alumni serving around the world in World War II, Salem’s 188-0 win over Fairfield was read by Salem servicemen in major papers in Texas, California, Hawaii and London.

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The man who excelled in sports at the high school level attaining All-State honors in football, and went on to become general manager of the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears, of the National Football League, and president of the Chicago Cubs, of the National League, and general manager of the New Orleans Saints was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1985.

Jim Finks, a 1945 graduate of SCHS, was named to both the Champaign News-Gazette and the Chicago Daily News All-State teams his senior year. During the 1944 football season, with Salem compiling an 8-1 record, Finks scored 100 points, had 2107 yards of total offense (rushing for 1332 yards), passing for nine touchdowns. He was the team’s punter, averaging 43.2 yards per kick on 22 punts.

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