Dr. Cahill was raised on a farm north of Bradford.  In an interview with the Peoria Journal Star (December 19, 1999) he had these recollections:

“…we did not have electric lights until 1947, when I graduated from high school. So it was almost like the history of Lincoln, only we didn't have to do our reading by the fireplace, we had Coleman lanterns that we used…  My brother and I both went to a one-room schoolhouse and had one teacher. As it turns out, I was the smartest kid in my class for eight straight years. It may be because I was the only one in my class…

Dr. Cahill went on to talk about his studies at Bradford High School:

“When I got to high school at Bradford Township High School, there was one teacher I particularly remember. Her name was Miss Sally Van Zan. She had taught my father and my mother in high school, and she taught at Bradford for 50-plus years . . .

“This lady, she would individually interview… the freshmen in high school. She was somewhat dictatorial, and she was a lovely-looking, very handsome woman who always was absolutely meticulously put together every day. She lived by herself all her life. She was from Kentucky. And the grownups just loved her in town . . .She would pound and hammer in a kind, leading way, and shed get the best out of you and would always push you to be better and better and better - and smarter, we called it in those days. About halfway through the freshman year she told me that I'm wasting my life if I don't go to college. . . .”

Dr. Cahill said of his early days in Sports Medicine:

“…there was a real problem with sports medicine… if you talked about sports medicine, you'd have to spend maybe a half hour explaining to whoever asked you about what sports medicine is. And so in Peoria and nationwide, there was a real problem with high school football, that is, a number of severe knee injuries that these kids were sustaining…”

Dr. Cahill became one of the first team doctors to the U.S. Olympic Ski team.  In those days, he stated, they were the only doctors present, most teams did not have doctors on staff.  So athletes of all kinds of countries would come for help with injuries during competition.  He was present at Lake Placid, New York for the 1980 Winter Olympics.    

Dr. Cahill became involved with the Football program at Peoria Richwoods High School and  was instrumental in changing the approach to student athletes.  Prior to his intervention, coaches would often withhold water during late Summer practices, in order to “toughen players up.”  Also, very little conditioning was involved, so when Football  practice started, not long before the season started, players were highly prone to serious injuries.  Prior to his work, terms like “hydration” and “conditioning” as well as the concept of strengthening the knee and the rest of the leg, were virtually unknown. Dr. Cahill was instrumental in proving to the IHSA that Summer conditioning was important, even vital, to prevent injury.  He stated in the Journal Star interview:

“We started a program out of pre-season training, and that was six weeks prior to the date when you could have on pads, and a few more dates prior to when you could be doing hitting contact.  The purpose of it was to strengthen the knee, to increase endurance, to increase agility and overall the health of the knee. Also, it was to pick out those people who had had a previous injury the year before and were never rehabilitated . . .”

The study began in 1968, involving 8 Peoria area high schools.  He stated:

“About July, we would go to schools, and I would personally examine the knees, both knees, of each varsity athlete. In addition to that, we put them on a bicycle to test their endurance. Thirdly, we would get data on any weight-lifting studies that they had done the year before…  As we know now, it was a vast success in decreasing early injuries, decreasing the severity of injuries, if they did occur. By the second year into the second part of the study, the IHSA allowed all of the members of the MidState 9 to participate in this. And then the following year, they opened it statewide, and the following year after that it was nationally adopted . . .”

Team members included:  Efnor, Browning, Bowyer,

                                      DeWeerth, Piper, Dison,

                                      Bucher, Mowbray, Velde,

                                      P. Gingerich, Code

Larry Odum was the new basketball coach.   He was a graduate of Southeast Missouri State.  The Panthers finished the season with a 14-12 record and a fourth place finish in the Blackhawk Conference race.  Brandon Piper was a first team All Conference selection.  Leading scorers for the Panthers were Brandon Piper (20.2 ppg), David Bucher (15.4 ppg), John Gingerich (12.9 ppg), and Pete Gingerich(10.3ppg).

The Panthers reached the Regional Championship in 1959-60, losing to Kewanee 62-51 in the championship game.  During the season the Panthers split games with Galva.  Galva won the first game, 69-64.  The Panthers came back in the second game, winning 83-81.  David Bucher scored 35 points and Brandon Piper, 19 points to lead the Panthers.  Galva had a unanimous All Conference player in Rich Falk.  Falk went on to star at Northwestern University and later with the Boston Celtics of the NBA.

1960-61   19 - 8                                                             Coach Larry Odum