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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A triple-threat halfback who lettered in football all four years at SCHS, Howard “Bud” Wagoner, was inducted into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.

A 1946 graduate of SCHS, Wagoner was the key running back on the Salem team that posted an 8-2 record, outscoring their opponents 273-60. Salem, conference champions in 1943 and 1944, missed a third straight NEC title by only a 7-6 loss to Flora.

Wagoner’s team leading 171 points in 1945 was the second highest total in the State. He scored 25 touchdowns and converted 21 extra points from placement. He also threw six touchdown passes. He carried the ball 196 times, netting 1569 yards for an eight yard average. As a team, the Wildcats gained 3152 yards.

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An all-around athlete in high school, one of the inductees into the Salem Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 continued to gain prominence and honors in the sports world on the coaching level. A 1949 SCHS graduate, Bob Frala was a three sports star in his high school years.

In tandem with Jim Bredar, as the “Gold Dust Twins”, Frala started on a road to successful ventures in the sports world in football, basketball and track as a member of Wildcat athletic teams.

After graduation, he attended the University of Illinois, concentrating on the coaching aspects of sports. While at Illinois, Illini Coach Ray Eliot said that “Bob Frala has one of the most comprehensive notebooks on football I have received from all of my classes.”

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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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