Former Athletics Chaplain Maurice Hilliard was scheduled to speak in Chapel yesterday, but the time was instead filled with tributes to his life. Members of the Pepperdine community shared stories of the way Hilliard had loved and ministered to them.
Hilliard was found dead on the beach on the morning of Monday, March 12. He had worked in Athletics since 2001 and was the program director of the Boone Center for the Family. Students, faculty and staff responded with prayer memorials honoring Hilliard last week and speeches in Chapel highlighting his impact on the campus.
Hilliard had instructed Convocation Director Sarah Jaggard that he wanted a 24-hour period of prayer to take place in Heritage Hall following his Chapel. True to his request, volunteers assigned to pray from 11 a.m. yesterday to 11 a.m. today prayed through a list covering every Seaver student.
Religion professor Raymond Carr began Chapel, noting Hilliard’s gift of encouragement, felt in Hilliard’s insistence on calling him “Dr. Carr” while Carr finished his doctorate, despite Carr’s refusal to accept the title. He closed with an adapted quote from “The Shawshank Redemption”: “Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Maurice being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is just that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.”
Sports medicine professor Cooker Perkins said she and Hilliard had had several disagreements, as good friends do, one “over the divinity of chocolate.” Clasping her own pearl necklace, she said they did agree on the value of a pearl as a metaphor for the human heart and an image of the incalculable worth of human life, referencing Hilliard’s book, “The Price of a Pearl.”
“Maurice fought for this. … He was a warrior, but not the typical warrior,” Perkins said. “He was the gentlest of the fierce warriors and the fiercest of the gentle warriors.”
Alumnus Greg Lee spoke of the value of Hilliard’s mentorship during Lee’s time as student body president, and alumna Christine Yi Suh sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” as Hilliard had asked her to do at his Chapel.
Assistant Director of the Pepperdine Volunteer Center Meredith Miller shared her experience of God’s faithfulness in comforting those in mourning, using her story of giving birth prematurely to twins at five months, too early for the babies to survive. She called those mourning Hilliard’s death to refuse to be overwhelmed by grief but to lean on God’s protective power.
Between speakers, a slideshow played, showing the depth of Hilliard’s involvement in the Pepperdine community. He was pictured with students at events from dinner at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles to graduation to a wedding.
Perkins emphasized the spiritual impact he had on the campus, saying it was difficult to pick one scripture to describe him because “it’s the whole Bible.”
“Most of us don’t wake up feeling a Christ-like patience and selflessness,” she said. “Because of Christ we have freedom. Freedom to speak and behave how we choose. Maurice didn’t wake up feeling Christ-like. Maurice made a choice every morning. Probably every hour. And every moment as needed.”
Perkins then read Galatians 5:13-14. “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
“This is the word of God,” Perkins said, “and this is the heart of Maurice.”
A memorial service to be officiated by Francis Chan will be held Sunday at 11 a.m. in Firestone Fieldhouse.
