McCombs: Remembering 'Mr. Seahawk' Ron Costello + photo gallery

One by one, those that knew him best took to the podium Monday evening at Grace Community Church on Hilton Head Island to talk about Ron Costello, the longtime Hilton Head Island High School volunteer who died Aug. 6.

Greg Elliott, the former Hilton Head High basketball coach and athletics director, now at Summerville; Dave Adams, a friend and co-worker of Costello's since their days at May River Academy and now the AD at Bluffton; Shawn Zink, the athletics trainer at Hilton Head and Costello's friend for more than two decades; and Guy Malool, Costello's longtime partner in the Hilton Head baseball press box and fellow Seahawks backer -- they all spoke fondly of Ron.

I'm going to call him Ron this time because I knew him.

A celebration of Ron's life and memory is how the evening was billed, and it was appropriate. I refuse to believe anyone who knew Ron Costello wasn't better off because of it.

Elliott called Ron a "helper" who loved three things: young people, athletics and the South Carolina Gamecocks. He said Ron was known for two skills: giving directions and mispronouncing names.

Elliott's favorites were Ron's destruction of "Socastee," once calling the Horry County school "Socrates," and the time he called the Packet with the score of a basketball game between Hilton Head and Florida's Faith Hill Academy.

As someone who often was on the other end of Ron's calls for the past three years, I'd always ask him to spell it, whatever "it" was. It was the safe way to go.

Adams, who went back the longest with Ron among Monday's scheduled speakers, talked about how he tried to delay reality when he first received news by text of Ron's death. Sadly, it didn't work.

He talked about always having to ask, when Ron started a story, if it was true or a joke. Because you never knew.

Adams said without Ron, he had no one to keep him up to date on what was going on in the world of sports and what the price of diesel fuel was nowadays.

"Ron was Ron," Adams said. "If you knew him, you know what I mean."

Zink jokingly talked about Ron's habit of only getting his hair cut in months that had a "J" in the name and Ron's willingness to "step over and out of bounds if he had to help someone."

Then he read a loving letter written by Len Costello, who only in recent years had become close again with his older brother.

Zink also shared a hilarious tale of Ron's attempt to hide the fact, for several days, that the dentures for his two front teeth had been broken out.

Malool struggled to talk initially, the emotion getting to him. But he rallied, speaking with Ron's Seahawks jacket hanging from the microphone, to tell how strong Ron's faith in God was. And how he's probably giving St. Peter directions now.

In the end, all of the speakers shared a common theme -- how much of himself Ron gave. Whatever was needed. To his friends and to the kids, no matter what school they were from or where they lived. He spent his entire life, from childhood until the day he died, making other people's lives better.

And I don't believe hearing it said over and over did it justice.

"He really wanted you to enjoy life," Pastor Matthew Palmer said during his closing. "And he would do everything he could to make sure you enjoyed life."

Living proof of that came from the speaker that wasn't listed in Monday night's program.

As Malool stepped away from the stage, he was quickly replaced by an emotional Tim Herndon, Ron's stepson. He said he only knew he was going to speak at the moment he got up and did it.

Herndon, his eyes covered by sunglasses, struggled at first. But what he had to say was important. He owed everything to Ron. He said Ron taught him everything he knew about being a man, from how to work and give and play sports to how to treat women.

He recalled being embarrassed as a child by his stepfather walking down the road picking up aluminum cans. Only later did he realize Ron did it so his family would have money for summer vacations.

Herndon's fondest memory was making a big play in a Hilton Head High football game and hearing Ron say on the loudspeaker, "That's my son." It took him years to tell him how much it meant.

"Sometimes when you're young," Herndon said, "you're afraid to tell someone how much you love them. You think you'll always have time."

After the program, I asked Herndon, "Why aren't there more Ron Costellos in the world?"

"I don't know," he said. "Ron was one in a million. He was definitely selfless. I think he just liked helping people. He always loved helping people. He loved seeing people happy. He loved giving. Ron was never a material person. He wanted to see other people have things.

"... He was just a good person."

Follow sports editor Mike McCombs on Twitter at www.twitter.com/IPBGsports

This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 2:22 AM with the headline "McCombs: Remembering 'Mr. Seahawk' Ron Costello + photo gallery."