The father was swagger and force. The son is introspection and finesse.
Both are named Rylan Hainje. They could not be more different. Or more alike.
The father became a memorable figure around Butler University and Cathedral High School. He had tryouts for the Pacers and Colts.
“That was crazy. I was not expecting that,” said the son, who learned of his father’s exploits a few years ago.
The son, a 17-year-old junior at Franklin Central, has been similarly unconventional. He never participated in organized sports until last year. Now, he is on the verge of becoming the fastest hurdler in Indiana high school history.
Did we mention this all happened in about 14 months?
“I expected him to be better. But not what he’s doing now,” the father said. “It just kind of came out of nowhere.”
A father’s legacy
First, a bit about the older Rylan Hainje.
At Cathedral, he played on state championship teams in Class 4A football in 1996 and Class 3A basketball in 1998. The 6-foot-6 forward was recruited by coach Thad Matta to play basketball at Butler.
“He was the ultimate alpha male in a roomful of alpha males,” former teammate Scott Robisch once said. “No one ever messed with Rylan. Ever.”
He was at his best against Butler’s top opponents or when stakes were highest.
In 2001, Hainje scored 20 points to lead Butler over Detroit 53-38 to win the Midwestern Collegiate Conference. He scored 15 in the Bulldogs’ first NCAA tournament victory in 39 years, a 79-63 victory over Wake Forest.
The next season, Hainje scored 25 points as Butler erased a 14-point deficit for its first victory at Purdue since 1954. He scored 19 of his 23 in the first half of a victory at Ball State, propelling Butler into the Top 25 for the first time in 53 years.
Butler became 13-0 by beating Indiana 66-64 at then-Conseco Fieldhouse. It was a pyrrhic victory.
Hainje developed a chip fracture in his ankle. He never missed a game thereafter and became Horizon League player of the year. But Butler was snubbed for a 2002 NCAA tournament selection despite a 25-5 record and high computer ranking.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was sick. I was just sick,” Hainje said.
Neither the NFL nor the NBA were in his future. He had a tryout with the Colts as a tight end. He said the late Jim Irsay, the Colts owner, was among those watching a private workout.
Hainje went on to play pro basketball in Europe for a few seasons, winning championships in Hungary and Norway. Then back to Indianapolis, where he started a car detailing business. His clients now include NFL and NBA players.
Hainje once struggled to finish workouts
There are out-of-nowhere stories in track and field. Usually, those are about teens featuring unmeasured speed or strength. Hurdling is about technique.
Overnight success? Does not happen. Until now.
The son Rylan Hainje — he doesn’t go by Rylan Jr. or Rylan II or Junior — has height (6-foot-4), genes, coaching, and, most recently, motivation.
He was not one to be caught up in youth sports culture. He ran footraces in the neighborhood. He played pickup ball. That was about it.
He said he thought about track in eighth grade but lacked confidence or friends on the team. He planned to try out as a freshman until he broke his leg playing pickup football. Then a friend encouraged him to try again.
Hainje missed the 2024 indoor season and came out in March, after spring break.
Providentially, he was steered to Franklin Central’s hurdles coach, Melinda George. She had developed two hurdles state champions, Zach Bray and Jacob Wright, while coaching at Hamilton Southeastern.
Her day job: forensic DNA analyst for the Indiana State Police Laboratory.
“Hurdles is all science,” George said. “You can win by being technical.”
Initially, Hainje was “terrified” of the hurdles, George said. So at his first practice, he started over 6-inch wickets. Then 30-inch girls hurdles. Finally, 39-inch boys hurdles.
The next day, he ran his first meet. And won. His time in the 110-meter hurdles was uninspiring — 16.98 seconds — but it was a start.
Last year Hainje coped with anxiety and false-started out of some races. Also, he was not used to training. In one workout, he was supposed to run 12 times 200 meters.
“After two 200s, I’d be like, ‘Where did he go?’ He’d be like, ‘Oh I’m done. I’m tired,’ ” George said.
Last season, Hainje finished two workouts. This season, all of them.
A back injury interrupted last season, and he went into the sectional without having run the 110 hurdles in a month. He finished third in 15.04, then lowered his time to 15.02 in placing fifth in the regional.
Not bad for a sophomore. Nothing like what he was becoming.
“It’s just been a learning curve,” George said.
Hainje breaks records
Last summer, George regularly coached hurdler Hainje, who transformed from tentative to tenacious. They worked on takeoff and landing, knee and foot placement, posture, block settings, starts. Everything.
“He’s stronger. He pays more attention, and he’s just more excited about it,” George said.
Improvement was dramatic. In his first indoor race March 5, he ran the 60-meter hurdles in 7.98 to break the school record held by Malachi Quarles, a state champion.
On March 12, Hainje clocked 7.78 to break the state record set by Fishers’ Tyler Tarter last year. A week later, Hainje lowered that to 7.76 – 11th in the nation, fourth among juniors.
He was third in the state indoors, beaten by Merrillville’s John Peters, who tied Hainje’s state record, and Lawrence Central junior Evan Williams.
Confidence wasn’t an issue, Hainje said. Just got beat. George reasoned the loss was needed to persuade the hurdler he still needs to become faster, has work to do.
Chasing a state record
Widespread use of mechanisms that time to hundredths of a second was not available until the 1980s, so we can’t assert what Hainje is doing is unprecedented. It might be.
The Indiana High School Athletic Association lists the state meet record in the 110 hurdles as 13.64 by Tech’s Jerry Hill from 1976. But that’s a hand-timed 13.4, adding a conversion of 0.24 seconds. Fastest at the state meet with automatic timing is 13.69 by Evansville Harrison’s Bryce Brown in 2007. All-time Indiana best is a wind-aided 13.42 by Brown or a hand-timed 13.3 by Gary Roosevelt’s Elbert Turner in 1986.
It is all inconclusive. Hainje has not been credited with an outdoor state record. Not yet.
He has not only been swift all spring, but consistently so. His past five meets: 13.78, 13.66, 13.61, 13.69, 13.75.
“I don’t know how fast the kid can go at this point,” George said.
He is 11-0 in the 110 hurdles. In the 300 hurdles, he has lost only to Demario Moore of Lawrence North. Moore (36.93) and Hainje (37.20) are Nos. 5 and 8, respectively, in state history. Hainje runs the second leg in the 4×100-meter relay, in which Franklin Central is among the fastest teams in Indiana.
Hainje must advance out of the Lawrence Central Regional May 29 to make the state meet June 6 at North Central.
The hurdler lives with his mother, Tiffany Jones, and twin brother, Braylin. He said he speaks regularly to his father, who videos races and posts them on social media.
“This is his safe haven here,” the father said at the Marion County meet. “This is what he loves to do. Kind of like how I did in basketball and football.”
The son said people approach him at meets and ask if he is related to the other Rylan Hainje, making him “nervous a little bit.” The father is vocally supportive at meets, but the son said “everything zones out” and he doesn’t usually hear anything.
“He’s getting much more confident,” George said. “Kids at school figure out who he is.”
The hurdler is unsure about racing after the state meet. New Balance nationals are June 19-22 at Philadelphia, or he might run in the Junior Olympics that culminate in a nationals July 21-27 at Savannah, Ga.
It is early in the college recruiting process, too, although Hainje will attract attention. Only six other juniors in the nation have run as fast as 13.61.
Unlike his father at Butler, he doesn’t have to depend on a selection committee for validation. The clock is the arbiter.
“We have come a l-o-n-g way,” George said.
And in a short time.
Contact David Woods at dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him on X: @DavidWoods007.
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