 All four championships were won under the older unified system, where all state schools competed in the same state tournament, before the introduction of the current class system that divides the state's schools by enrollment size and results in multiple "state champions" each year.Stephen Decatur High School is one of only a handful of Illinois schools with over 1000 basketball victories in its history (W-1352, L-912 for a .597 winning percentage 1913 - 2000)


After an arson fire in March 1970 destroyed classrooms and school offices in the southwest corner of the building, the facility reopened some weeks later, but after a study recommended replacing, rather than rehabilitating, the building, the building was scheduled for demolition in 1975.In the final school year for the original Stephen Decatur High School building (1974-1975), school class schedules were changed to accommodate the students from the crosstown Lakeview High School because of extensive damage that the Lakeview building received when a railroad car filled with isobutane exploded in a nearby railroad yard on July 19, 1974.