Joel Hawkins graduated from Central Michigan University in 1985, the same year his teaching career began in Highland. His coaching career began a year later.

Joes was the Middle School baseball coach from 1986 to 1991. Hawkins was an assistant football coach at Highland High School for more than 20 years (1997-2008). He also helped initiate the HHS hockey program and served as head coach for five years from 1999-2003. Joel also found time to be a sponsor for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes since 1987 and still serves in that role.

But, it is as a baseball coach that Joel Hawkins place in HHS sports history is permanently cemented. Hawkins coached at the Middle School and Junior Varsity levels from 1986 until 1991. He became the head high school baseball coach in the spring of 1992 and history began. His first two Bulldog teams won Regional titles and for only the second time in HHS history had a team win 20 games in back-to-back seasons. 2017 marks 26 years for Hawkins as the leader of the baseball Bulldogs. His teams have won more than 550 games (558-308, a .648 winning percentage), while experiencing just four losing seasons. The Bulldogs have never had back-to-back losing seasons in his tenure. Seventeen times his clubs have topped the 20-win mark and twice his teams won an amazing 30 games, including a school record of 36-4 in 2008. The Bulldogs have amassed some impressive hardware under his direction, winning eight Regional titles, three Sectional titles, two super-sectional plaques and two IHSA State Championships (2008 and 2015). Edwardsville, Columbia, Alton Marquette, Teutopolis, Chatham Glenwood and Pleasant Plains are the only other schools in Southern Illinois (Springfield down) to win two state baseball championships.

Joel Hawkins also has the distinction of coaching the fifth longest game in IHSA history, a 19-inning game vs. Jerseyville in 2015. Joel was elected into the Illinois Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2016.