Featured Story /// Ron Haines, Blair Oaks


Meet


“THE GREAT” Ron Haines


Story by: Dick Aldrich


Photography by: Stephanie Brenneke


You may not notice him. A smallish guy with a vid-  the end of his nose. He’s usually on the sidelines of  of the next play. You might think he’s with one of the television stations, shooting highlights for the evening news. He is shooting highlights, but it’s for far more than the 30 seconds or so you’ll see on the news that night.


When he’s done, he’ll go home, sit down at his computer, and edit his video and the play-by-play audio for hours, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning. Then he’ll upload the 15-30 minutes of edited highlights to YouTube, then turn around and do it all over again, maybe a day later. All for no money, all for the kids and the parents of the teams involved. Yeah, it’s pretty great. I don’t remember where I met him. I think it was at a Blair Oaks football game in 2020 or 2021. I don’t remember how I found his videos. I think that was a few years before, when he was preparing   


           2021. He was watching our coverage of the tournament on Face- book and noticed my less-than-stellar camera work and the pub- lic’s hostile reaction to it. He says he told his wife, “I can help this guy.” So he messaged me, and we agreed to meet up at the next Blair Oaks home basketball game. He brought his profession-


102 /// September 2025


al-grade camera and tripod, we hooked up to my computer, and after a few pointers from me about how to shoot live basketball video, the rest is history. As usual, he asked for nothing in return. The video was, in a word, great. And from then on, to me, he was 


Not that he would use the moniker himself. Ron was born and grew up in a small Ohio town 45 miles east of Cleveland. Not a large human being, Ron grew up playing baseball and football in  small school,” said Ron.  he was on his way to Marine boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. Ron served 22 years in the Marines, mostly on the east coast at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, North Carolina. In-


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108