Hundreds attend celebration of life for longtime Hilton Head athletic director
The Seahawk Stadium was packed Monday evening with over 400 students, parents, coaches, and teachers dressed in blue, white and purple.
The crowd wasn’t there for a football game or a graduation ceremony, but a more somber occasion. Hilton Head Island High School held a celebration of life at the stadium in honor of Athletic Director Joe Monmonier, who died last week. He was 53.
Monmonier has led the Seahawks for the past 13 years, and has helped shaped the success of the school’s athletic programs, friends and colleagues said. A Baltimore native, Monmonier loved pit beef sandwiches, the Baltimore Ravens, and most of all, his family.
Monmonier first came to HHIHS in 2006 to teach special education and coach lacrosse at a time when lacrosse was just picking up steam in South Carolina. HHIHS was the first high school in the state to create a lacrosse team just six years prior.
A lifelong mentor to many
Monmonier kept in touch with many student athletes long after they graduated, whether they needed advice or just wanted to chat.
Will Sturm was a junior at HHIHS the year Monmonier first took over as lacrosse coach. He hadn’t performed so well the previous season, and wasn’t sure about continuing with the sport. As Monmonier put together the team, parents warned him not to let Sturm be the goalie.
Monmonier refused to believe Sturm was a lost cause. He took it upon himself to mentor the kid, meeting him after school for one-on-one goalie training. He believed he could make Sturm a good player.
“I was very close to probably quitting lacrosse, and Joe was like, ‘No, just give me some time,’” recalled Sturm, who is now the Assistant Superintendent at Sea Pines Country Club.
Monmonier was firm, but never yelled, Sturm recalled. He still kept his players in line by making them repeat drills over and over until they did it right and not letting them skip running after practice. If Monmonier’s life was a sports movie, Sturm said it would be hockey classic Miracle, the tale of the underdog 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team triumph of winning the gold medal.
After Sturn graduated, he stayed in touch with his former coach. When Sturm moved back to Hilton Head during the COVID-19 pandemic, he visited Monmonier every once in a while to catch up or talk sports.
After he stepped away from coaching to take over as Athletic Director, Monmonier still developed close relationships with students. Coach Colin Courtney remembers Monmonier helping him with his college applications when he was a student. When Courtney came back to his old school to coach lacrosse, his former mentor was still around to give advice and offer support.
Friends and colleagues recall quirks
Close friends and colleagues painted a vivid picture of Monmonier’s through stories on and off the field.
Best friend Jared Cooke recalled what Monmonier was like back when they played lacrosse together in eighth grade.
“He was fierce, sometimes a bit nasty, and he sure enjoyed smack talk,” Cooke said. But off the field, he was “a true gentleman.”
Cooke’s stories went on: one time, Monmonier installed a plastic speed bump in his neighborhood when his city refused, only for the city to remove it the next day. He once got kicked out of a bar for wrestling on the bar. He had a certain giggle he’d do whenever “something was afoot,” Cooke said, and he bit the palm of his hand when he was happy. He was known for bombarding friends and colleagues with endless photos of vacation, fishing trips, and family milestones. When he took a photo of himself lounging on the beach with a can of Miller Lite, he’d “inexplicably” always include his big toe in the shot.
“Most importantly, Joe taught me something that changed my life,” Cooke said. “He started saying ‘I love you’ when he’d leave, and it started me saying it too to those I care about. Thank you, Joe, for that gift.”
As the sun set over the Seahawks stadium, attendees stayed behind to write down stories about Monmonier on paper forms. The stories will go into a scrapbook for daughters Ava and Caroline to remember their father for years to come.
