From a two-hand set-shot artist to a trick shot artist, a one-year basketball star at Salem High School and a four-year star at Southern Illinois University, John “Junior” Sebastian was inducted into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.

After finishing the three years at Odin High School, Sebastian came to Salem for his senior year and was the leading scorer for the 1938-39 Salem Wildcats, the first team coached by Hall of Famer, the late Michael E. Lenich. Teamed with Richard Robb, Bill Finks, the late James “Hezzy” West and fellow Odinite Jim Bradley, Sebastian led the team in scoring with 223 points of the 626 scored that year.

The Wildcats had a 15-6 record and finished third in the North Egypt Conference. One memorable game was a 5345 victory over Centralia in Trout Gym, when Sebastian’s two-handed “kiss-shot” netted 28 points. He graduated from SIU in 1947, leading the team in scoring for three years. He has been elected to the SIU Sports Hall of Fame.

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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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A life-long Salem resident and one of the first outstanding “big men” in Salem basketball, Mark Johnson, was inducted into the Salem High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.

Johnson was a member of the 1947-48 basketball team that compiled a 27-3 season mark, the best in Salem’s history. With Johnson leading the way, Salem was North Egypt Conference champion with an 11-1 record. That team was also inducted into the Hall of Fame. Johnson, at 6’5″ was the tallest of the Wildcats that year, leading the team in scoring with 429 points. When he was a junior, the Wildcats also won the North Egypt title, also with an 11-1 record. In high school, in addition to basketball, Johnson also participated in football and track.

After graduating from high school, Johnson attended the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University, graduating in 1953, and he played basketball there. He served in the Air Force from February, 1954, to February, 1956, and in August of 1956 was hired to teach in the Salem Grade School system at Oak Park and Central. At the same time he was junior varsity basketball coach at SCHS, a position he held until 1975. He also served as assistant football coach at SCHS.

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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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One of Salem’s premier basketball players, who really had only one year of prominence in high school, gained most of his fame after high school graduation in college and in military service. Jim Bredar, a 1949 SCHS graduate, was standout enough to be named to the all-conference basketball team.

As one erstwhile sportswriter called him, “the Radar Kid,” Bredar scored 422 points his senior year, as the Wildcats finished with an 18-9 record. That team had a 14-6 record in regular season play, uniquely 7-3 at home and 7-3 on the road.

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