After traveling the country and living out of their Jeep for six months, Hillsdale alumna Regan Monnin, and her husband Jordan, traded the road for rural life and settled down in Hillsdale, Michigan.
Monnin is one of the newest additions to the Hillsdale College Athletics department. Working as a community and media relations associate, Regan now manages Instagram accounts, marketing, and the video footage collection for some of your favorite Charger teams.
While living on the road, Monnin managed a few personal social media accounts. Running a Tiktok and Instagram page documenting the day-to-day activities of living in a Jeep while exploring the country, Monnin said she learned how to perfect the algorithm to get the most views and interactions with her posts. Along with their travel account, Monnin helped cultivate her husband’s professional disc golf accounts to help attract sponsors and new viewers.
“While we were living in the Jeep, I went viral on Tiktok within the span of three months,” Monnin said. “So I learned how to navigate social media for personal accounts, but it’s definitely a lot of great experience.”
During her time as a student at Hillsdale, Monnin was on staff at The Collegian and developed a passion for sports journalism. Along with covering the track and field team and the women’s volleyball team, Monnin took a sports journalism class at Hillsdale and had an internship during the summer of 2020.
“I worked in the ticketing office for the Florence Y’alls, a minor league baseball team in Kentucky,” Monnin said. “They were one of the only minor league baseball teams to play during COVID, so they created two teams. They were like the Harlem Globetrotters, except baseball.”
But once she met her now-husband, Monnin knew that a sports journalism career simply wouldn’t work with their lifestyle or allow her to settle down.
“I wanted to be a sports journalist,” Monnin said. “But then I figured out that if I wanted to be successful at it, I would have to work ridiculous hours and have no life outside of work, and I didn’t want to do that.”
When Monnin and her husband were ready to take a break from the road and have permanent access to a shower, this sports marketing position felt like the perfect reason to come back to Hillsdale.
“When we were looking at options, I found this position, and it’s basically my dream job,” Monnin said. “It can be really hard to break into college athletics, so this is giving me great experience for wherever we end up in the future.”
James Gensterblum, Director of Athletic Communications, said the athletic department was very grateful for Monnin’s expertise and interest in Hillsdale athletics.
“Regan’s already proved to be a valuable addition in the first few weeks of her employment, taking over the bulk of our department social media as well as marketing for the athletic department,” Gensterblum said. “I’m personally looking forward to what she’ll be able to do as she grows into her role and gets more comfortable in the position over the coming months, given what she’s already done in such a short time.”
Even though the Jeep now occupies a permanent parking space, it’s not collecting dust. The Monnins are still traveling every chance they get, especially as Jordan continues to break into the professional disc golf circuit.
The couple traveled the three and a half hours to Ludington, Michigan, this past weekend. Completing some disc golf courses and filming more content, Jordan and Regan still work together to have fun, travel often, and pursue their individual interests.
“We’re not done traveling,” Regan said. “We’d like to end up on the road again eventually, but I have no idea when that will be. So, this was a very easy way for us to get off the road while we get situated.”
