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The 1950s were the heyday of football and track at Centralia Township High School with a host of standout athletes in both sports.
One of them was Paul Ritter, who is the 2019 Centralia Sports Hall of Fame inductee in the Veterans category.
An outstanding halfback on the gridiron, he was also a record-setting athlete in track, playing for coach Jimmie Evers in both sports and had a stellar senior season in each sport in the 1954-55 school year.
He first drew notice as a sophomore by winning the pole vault in the first meet at Belleville and ran the anchor leg on the 880-yard relay team that took first at the Mineral Area Invitational, and repeated that feat at the South 7 Conference meet while also tying the Herrin Relays meet record in the same event.
As a junior in the fall of 1953, he scored his first varsity touchdown in a 58-0 win over Benton and also had a 16-yard touchdown run in a win over Harrisburg.
Although an injury hampered Ritter during his junior year in track, he came back strong that fall for his senior season in football.
In the season opener versus Flora, his 51-yard run set up a 1-yard plunge on the next play as Centralia won 32-0. He added a TD and kicked a conversion the following week in a 32-13 victory over Benton.
Facing Herrin in a battle between two teams expected to be at the top of the South 7 Conference, Ritter scored on runs of 41 and 74 yards as Centralia romped to a 46-0 victory.
Three weeks later in the Shrine Game versus Salem, he scored the first touchdown of the game to ignite the offense in a 60-0 victory while adding scores on a 25-yard pass from Bobby Joe Mason and on a 10-yard run off the Statute of Liberty play.
Against West Frankfort, Ritter had touchdown runs of 37 and 60 yards, and scored on a 20-yard pass as the Orphans wrapped up a conference championship with a 58-6 victory and took a 9-0 record into the season finale at East St. Louis in a battle of unbeatens, and while the Flyers won 28-7, it was Ritter who set up Centralia’s score with a 38-yard run.
For the season, he scored 88 points while receiving All-Southern Illinois honors, Special Mention by the Champaign News-Gazette and Special Mention All-State by the Chicago Daily News.
Inexplicably, he received only Honorable Mention from the South 7 Conference, which drew the ire of CTHS coach Jimmie Evers.
“Paul has made runs of 51, 60, 36, 30, 1, 40, 75, 65, 12 and 40 yards for touchdowns,” said Evers. “He has caught four touchdown passes of 20, 25, 42 and 30 yards. The pass for a touchdown in the Harrisburg game was made possible by a spectacular run with the play covering 43 yards.
“Paul has scored 14 touchdowns and four extra points and is the leading scorer in Southern Illinois with 88 points. he is a good punter and exceptional kickoff man as we all know. He is a great halfback on a great team and I hope he shows up in their judgment Friday [in the final game of the season].”
There were more honors yet to come. The following spring, Ritter and teammate Leonard Taylor were also named to Wig Wam Wisemen of America’s All-American team and were invited to play in the organization’s All-Star game in Memphis that following summer.
But first came the track season and in the season opener at Belleville, Ritter tied the school record of 10.1 in the 100-yard dash, and took first in the 220 in 24.1.
He followed that up with victories in both dashes in a meet with Salem while also running anchor on the first-place 880-yard relay team.
At the 31-team Mineral Area meet, Ritter was again a double winner in the 100 (10.9) and 220 (24.5) and also helped the 880 relay team to first place in 1:37.5.
Later that season in a second meet versus Salem he won the 100 (10.3) and the 220 in 23.7 while teaming with Bobby Joe Mason, Harold Welch and Dan Laughhunn for a first in the 880 relay in 1:35.
At the South 7 Conference meet, the Orphans won their 13th consecutive title as Ritter anchored the 880 relayers to a meet record in 1:34.4 and also won the 220.
Then came the district meet at Roxana where Ritter smashed a record in the 220 set in 1932 with a 22.4 in the preliminaries and repeated that time in the semifinals before finishing second in the finals to earn a trip to state.
He also qualified for state in the 100 by winning it in 10.3 and was on the 880 relay team that took second and also earned a state berth.
And while the Orphans didn’t place in the 880 relay at state, Ritter teamed with Dan Laughhunn, Sylvester Hutcherson and Bobby Joe Mason to tie the school record of 1:33.7.
Following his graduation from CTHS, he went on to the University of Oklahoma, one of the nation’s premier football programs and was first string on the freshman team.
After military service in the U.S. Army, he returned to his hometown and served the city of Centralia as a police officer for 35 years.
list@morningsentinel.com
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