While making trips between schools in the Manteno School District as the district behavior coordinator last month, Panthers football coach RJ Haines got a phone call he didn’t quite have time to pick up.

When he listened to the voicemail from Illinois High School Football Association Trustee Jeff Alderman, he couldn’t believe what he heard.

He was selected as part of the IHSFCA’s upcoming Hall of Fame class.

“I listened to it about three times and then sent it to my wife,” Haines said. “After about 20 minutes, I decided to call him back.

“It was really surreal,” he said. “It seems like the blink of an eye, to be honest. I can’t believe I’m at this point of my career. Then I start reflecting back on when I started, coaches I was with, kids I was with, and thinking about them.”

As Haines’ mind wandered, he had plenty of coaching thrills to recount. A 1995 Rushville-Industry and 1999 Monmouth College graduate, Haines began his career in Gilman at Iroquois West, serving as an assistant from 1999 to 2001.

He was promoted to head coach in 2002, and in just his second year as a head coach, led the Raiders to their lone athletic state championship in school history, the 2003 IHSA Class 2A state championship.

That team was powered by the air combo of former high school standouts who became head coaches. Quarterback Kyle Tutt is the head coach at Plano, while wide receiver Jason Thiele returned to coach his alma mater from 2020 to 2022, leading the Raiders to their only post-title playoff appearances in 2021 and 2022.

Haines became the youngest head coach to win a state championship that season. In an era before coaches could at least find a base level of guidance via the internet and YouTube, Haines was able to rely on a wonderful collection of athletic minds in Gilman.

The Raiders’ athletic director was basketball coaching legend Hanns Meyer, and former Martinsville football coach Kim Hawkins was the principal, helping Haines become close with local coaching legends Brian Spooner (Martinsville, Clifton Central) and Dean Cappel (Herscher, Clifton Central, Quincy, Bradley-Bourbonnais, Reed-Custer).

“That group right there was probably who I took cues from and modeled myself after, for the most part,” Haines said. “We didn’t have YouTube, so you went to clinics, got books, subscribed to American Football Monthly, and that’s how you learned.”

After a 23-19 record over four years with the Raiders, Haines took over a Manteno program in 2006 that had just come back in 2001 after a several-decade hiatus.

“They hadn’t had football for very long, and even to this day in 2025, if you look at comparisons to other programs, we haven’t turned over a generation yet,” Haines said. “My wife [Trisha] and I, we’d just gotten married, and that was relatively new. We were ready to get out of Gilman, and I was ready to jump up and try something else.”

Haines said he wanted to stay in a smaller town, and as a nurse, Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee was a perfect fit for Trisha. So after a few conversations with then-AD Ryan Kemp, Haines became a Panther.

As the Haines family grew – they now have 22-year-old Brayden, Manteno senior Camryn and freshman twins Devynn and Cora – so did the football program. After a 4-5 maiden voyage followed by a trio of 3-6 campaigns, the Panthers broke through with their first-ever playoff appearance in 2010, the start of an eight-year playoff streak. Through 21 years with the Panthers, Haines has a 106-97 record and has led Manteno to 11 playoff appearances and five playoff wins.

Over those years, Haines has plenty of great memories. That first playoff trip is one of them, as are the 2011 team that recently earned a team induction into the Manteno High School Hall of Fame – led by arguably the program’s top two all-time players, QB Ryan Sample and WR JJ Witherow – and the 2014 team that won a school-record 10 games.

While the wins are great to look back on, it’s the people Haines remembers more fondly.

“That’s what I remember more so,” Haines said. “I remember the teams we play and stuff, but for me it’s the relationships with the kids, and even the parents.”

Those relationships include the ones he currently has, whether with his staff of assistants or the support he gets from the administration. But there’s nobody who’s been as supportive of Haines over his career as Trisha.

Like anything else with love, Haines follows a simple mantra when it comes to his Hall of Fame induction – what’s mine is ours.

“I’m sure most coaches will tell you this, but to be a coach’s wife is not an easy task,” Haines said. “She had a lot of little kids on her own a lot of the time, because. She’s pretty appreciated, and this is a big accomplishment.”