Not surprisingly, over the years, records have been lost or incorrectly reported to the Illinois High School Association.
Those missing statistics have become the task of a few bookkeepers throughout the state, including local historian Tom Wilson who is working to tie up loose ends for football and basketball in particular.
Wilson says he first got involved when he saw Galesburg football had under 500 wins listed–a mark they have well surpassed.
The sports aficionado tells WGIL he’s made some interesting finds so far.
“Galesburg played their first football game in 1897, Monmouth High School started playing football a couple of years before Galesburg even,” Wilson said of football records he found. “By the way, people will wonder this, which school in Illinois has the most victories? It’s East St. Louis Senior High School. They’ve won 747 games.”
Wilson has been digging into old high school yearbooks, newspapers and microfilm to “fill in gaps” for multiple state schools.
Though interesting and important, Wilson says the task is never ending and laughs, wondering why he took on the daunting task. He hopes others will some day continue to the upkeep.
