Jeff Reents was just 23 years old when he took over as head football coach at Wilmington.

Fast forward 32 years, and few coaches in the history of IHSA football have put together a career as successful as his.

After leading the Wildcats to their fourth state title in 2025, and third in the last five years, Reents has been named the Daily Journal’s Male Sports Citizen of the Year.

“There’s definitely many times, and particularly this year, where I’ve had to pinch myself,” Reents said. “All coaches get nervous, and all coaches are going 100 miles an hour during the season, and that’s no different with us.

“But there’s not doubt that during this particular season, and many of these seasons here at Wilmington, where I sit back and think how lucky I am.”

The foundation of such a successful program was not built overnight, but it also didn’t take terribly long once Reents showed up.

Fresh out of Eureka College, Reents knew he wanted to get into coaching at Wilmington. He was not expecting to be named head coach right away, but interviewed for the position anyway.

The rest is history.

He took over a program coming off an 0-9 season in 1993, its first winless season in 30 years. The Wildcats improved to 3-6 in their first season under the young Reents and 5-4 the season after.

“There was a lot of learning in those early years,” he said. “We were all really young coaches trying to make a mark, and we only had about 23 or 24 kids on the team. Those guys were the foundation of what we built here.

“Then in 1996, we were able to break through and go to the quarterfinals, and it took off from there.”

The 1996 team then started 11-0 before that quarterfinal loss ended what was then the winningest season in program history.

Since that 1996 season, there has not been a single IHSA postseason that Reents and the Wildcats have not been a part of.

The Wildcats’ 13-1 record in 2025 put Reents at 298 wins for his career, pushing him into the top 10 in IHSA history and putting him on the verge of becoming the 10th coach in state history to reach 300 wins.

Hundreds of players have been part of those 298 wins over the years.

Something that means a lot to Reents is that once players enter the program, they stick with it until their senior year. A generation later, some even return to the program as parents.

“One thing that’s really neat to me now is I’ve been here long enough, and our staff has been here long enough, that we’re starting to get the sons of the players that started the program back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

“To see that, and to see all that come to fruition, is very special.”

The coaching staff has been another constant for Reents over the years. Two members of his staff, Bob Bolser and Barry Southall, have been there since the beginning.

More than three decades later, Southall said he is happy to have built something so successful with one of his closest friends.

“If you don’t like Jeff Reents, you can’t like anybody in life,” Southall said. “He’s very truthful, very honest, very determined. If he says something, he means it.

“Our program is what it is because of Jeff Reents. From the pee-wee level, all the way to way eighth grade and high school. He’s done a great job making the program built for the whole community.”

Chad Farrell has been on the staff for 20 years, and the recently-retired Rob Murphy coached alongside Reents for 30 years.

Many of the newer additions, such as Sean Micetich, Andy Peterson, Tony Vercelli, Drew Tyler, Blake Harseim, Mason Southall and Mark Langusch, have now been around for over a decade as well.

Langusch, like several other assistants, played under Reents in the earlier years of his career, graduating in 2003 before returning to Wilmington as an assistant in 2014. He said the high expectations Reents holds himself and everyone in the program to have helped sustain its success.

“I think there’s a lot of respect from people in the community, the players that get to know him and play for him, and even his staff members have for him because of those expectations,” he said. “It ends up bringing out good things in a lot of players that play for him and coaches that get to be a part of it.”

Reents said that his family, his wife Janelle, and daughters Justine and Jordyn, have all been very supportive through his coaching career, and as the Jeff Reents era of Wilmington football moves on, he said he hopes everyone else sees the program the way he does.

“I want to program to be first class, hard working and be known for playing for each other,” he said. “To be a true team.”

With Reents at the helm, that reputation is rock solid.