‘Mr. Seahawk’ to be honored Monday with renaming of baseball field

His name could have just as easily gone on the football stadium’s press box at Hilton Head Island High. Or on the basketball floor, right in front of the scorer’s table.

Ron Costello loved all sports, supported all sports. But baseball is the one “Mr. Seahawk” perhaps held closest to his heart.

“He loved the Mets, talked about them a lot,” athletics director Joe Monmonier recalled. “And that’s really how he came into (working with) the school. He really jelled with the baseball program, and it kind of spread out as time went on.”

And so with Monday night’s first pitch against rival Bluffton, the Seahawks’ diamond will be known as Ron Costello Field. A brief dedication ceremony honoring the do-everything volunteer, who died last August, will be held prior to the game’s 6:30 p.m. start.

“We want to celebrate him and get the word out to people that might like to be there,” Monmonier said. “He probably would be embarrassed, but we think it’ll be fitting for him.”

A newly installed sign atop the stadium scoreboard will display the revamped title. The Beaufort County School Board approved the change earlier this month, and Monday’s regular-season finale against Bluffton was the natural date.

Bluffton athletics director Dave Adams went back more than three decades with Costello, including 18 years as a Seahawks football assistant. Costello also transported some of the Bobcats’ teams for a decade, in addition to all the things he did for HHH athletics.

“Just with the history between Bluffton and Hilton Head, the fact that he was very close with Dave Adams at Bluffton and knows the coaches there, we thought it would be fitting that it (take place at) the last game of the season vs. Bluffton,” Monmonier said.

A Marine Corps veteran and Purple Heart recipient, Costello recovered from his wounds at Beaufort Memorial Hospital and stayed in the Lowcountry after leaving the Marines. Youth sports became his passion, which eventually led to volunteering at Hilton Head Island High in various roles.

Before long, Costello’s bus company was often the first call to take the Seahawks to road games.

“Ron knew where everything was,” said Monmonier, who came to the school 10 years ago as lacrosse coach. “He knew when the tennis team played at (a city) park instead of at the (opposing) school. As a coach, you could just coach the team and not worry about getting there.”

Costello also ran the clock at football and basketball games, kept stats at road games and made sure results got into the newspaper — details that school officials have come to appreciate even more in the months after his passing.

“A lot of those teams have lost out on coverage (this season), just because of the fact that he would always take care of that,” Monmonier said. “Coaches didn’t have to think about (preparing something) for the Packet.”

That dependability could extend beyond the sports realm, too. Monmonier recalled a day last year when he was working to install baseboards in his new home, but rains prevented him from picking up the last batch of 17-foot wood strips.

“So Ron fired up one of his buses,” the AD recalled, “and put the base molding in the back of his bus at Home Depot and dropped it off so I could finish my project.”

If only the Seahawks’ scoreboard could somehow assume some of Costello’s reliability in time for Monday’s ceremony. The 12-year-old scoreboard has been on the blink for a month now, with parts now becoming obsolete.

“I think it may be the Curse of Ron Costello,” Monmonier said with a laugh. “Right after we decided to name the field after him, the scoreboard stopped working.

“I’m hoping by Monday it’ll be working again. If not, we’ll kind of (weave) it into the story about Ron and naming the field after him. We’ve tried and tried and tried. It’s just one of those things. They don’t make parts anymore.”

Something similar might be said about Costello himself.

This story was originally published April 23, 2016 at 6:06 PM with the headline "‘Mr. Seahawk’ to be honored Monday with renaming of baseball field."