With seemingly boundless energy, a passion for teaching, and his signature catchphrase, Rugg helped build kinesiology into a signature program at Oxy
On the morning of May 18, as Oxy seniors and faculty lined up along Bird Road for the Commencement procession up to Hillside Theater, Professor of Kinesiology Stuart Rugg was in his element. “I kept teasing my students that it took me 38 years to get my diploma, compared to four for them,” he recalls. “I didn't know the College actually gave emeriti faculty the equivalent of a diploma—which was kind of cool.”
Thirty-four minutes into the ceremony, standing at the podium next to President Tom Stritikus, certificate in hand, Rugg seized the moment, leaned into the microphone, and uttered three simple words: “Stay Fired Up.”
“I couldn’t resist—that’s the way I always respond to my students,” Rugg explains with a characteristic grin a few days later. “That microphone was sitting right there, and there was wonderful energy from the students. “I can’t say that any one class of students is more enjoyable than another, because they all had something special to offer. But this was an incredibly great group to graduate with.”
For decades, “Stay Fired Up!”—often accompanied by a vigorous thumbs-up—has been Rugg’s signature. The origins of the maxim are lost to time, but its spirit is not. “I’ve been doing it since I was in the Ph.D. program at UCLA in the early 1980s,” he says. “I just thought it was easy, to the point, and got the message across.” (The thumbs-up, however, has a cinematic pedigree—the 1973 Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon.)
When Rugg began his Ph.D. studies, he was a zoology major. “One of the things that inspired the kinesiology path was looking at cheetahs,” he says. “Why are cheetahs so fast? What makes an albatross so good at gliding? What makes some animals so good and adapted for these wonderful abilities they have?” This curiosity soon pivoted toward humans. “Then it got to a point where I said, ‘I want to do this with people.’ So, I switched from zoology to kinesiology.”
He found his calling not just in the subject, but in sharing it. As a teaching assistant, he discovered a profound truth: Rather than the grant-dependent research of a large university and all that entails, “My lane was really on the teaching side, connecting with the students,” he says. “I was TAing anatomy and biomechanics most of my time at UCLA. And I just thought how great it was getting paid to share something I love with other people.”
Fate intervened when a job flyer for Occidental was posted at UCLA, and two of Rugg’s best friends in the Ph.D. program showed it to him. “They said, ‘Stuart, they might as well put your name on this job. This is exactly what you want to do.’” He looked at it and knew they were right: “I could not have written a more perfect job for me.”
Rugg’s arrival at Occidental coincided with the transition of the physical education major to a more science-based program in 1987, and Rugg immediately bonded with Professor of Kinesiology and Psychology Lynn Mehl, a friendship that endures to this day. “Lynn talked to President Dick Gilman about making physical education pretty much a premed-type major, because she thought we’d get a greater diversity of students,” he recalls.
In the evolution from physical education to exercise science to ultimately kinesiology, the program quickly gained in popularity. By 1990, “We needed an exercise physiologist,” Rugg recalls, “so I just called a great friend of mine at UCLA, Eric Sternlicht, and he was here for 24 years.” (In 2014, Sternlicht left Oxy to start the kinesiology program at Chapman University, where he remains today.). Other key hires later included Marcella Raney ’01 as an assistant professor in 2008, Melinda Houston as an adjunct associate professor in 2010, and Kirk Bentzen ’91 as an adjunct assistant professor in 2014.
Over the years, Rugg’s teaching philosophy remained simple: Replace memorization with understanding. “It’s a lot of information. I will do my best to eliminate as much memorization as possible. It’s trying to make sense out of why things work the way they are. Why are they designed the way they are? And if I can do that, then you don’t have to memorize as much. It’s still a language you speak.”
Rugg is one of two five-time recipients (along with Eric Newhall ’67) of the Donald R. Loftsgordon Memorial Award for Outstanding Teaching, awarded by the senior class each spring. “I didn’t take it to mean, ‘Oh, I’m the greatest teacher in the world. What it meant is I was connecting with a lot of students to get them excited about learning.”
He famously weaves stories into his lectures, so much so that when Rugg taught his last classes in spring 2024, one of his students, Kristin McCauley ‘25—a kinesiology major from Las Vegas “with a great life force”—was adamant that the final exam include a five-point question: “What’s your favorite story of Professor Rugg’s?” He laughingly obliged. “It was much fun to read what people said. That kind of thing means the world to me.”
For the last four years, Rugg has been volunteering at a no-kill animal shelter in Canoga Park. “I go there a minimum five days a week for two to three hours a day, and I walk all the big dogs—well, as many as I can get out,” he says. There are 45 big dogs on average: “Being that it's a no-kill shelter, some of the dogs have been there for four or five years, so they're my buds away from home.”
Back home, Rugg shares his space with his “four-legged daughter”—15-year-old Millie, a Jack Russell mix that he adopted around the age of 4. “I call her my life coach,” he says. “My second one went to heaven last year.” In the coming months, he hopes to plan a few road trips, “but I love this little dog so amazingly so I can't just take off all of a sudden.”
Rugg also hopes to get back into photography, having taken many of his students on camping trips to Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Big Sur over the years. “I just started taking students to Yosemite, and photography is a natural extension. To me, it was a wonderful way to get people to look at nature. It had nothing to do with kinesiology, and more to do with the beauty of light.”
In addition, Rugg is opening himself up to new outlets for his boundless energy. “A great friend of mine who’s also an Occidental alumnus is a professional photographer, and he wants to do everything from podcasts to seminars in photography and creativity. They wouldn’t have a kinesiological focus at all. They’d be more about getting people excited about doing things and realizing they have the ability to do them.”
With his departure, the department that Rugg helped build is in transition. (Vanessa Yingling, formerly an associate professor of kinesiology at California State University, East Bay, has joined Occidental as a kinesiology professor and department chair this fall.) Whatever comes next, he says, “I just knew in my heart it was time to step out and let some of the younger people and the College decide, where do you want to go with kinesiology? I’m so happy that I was part of it up to this point. But I didn’t want to overstay my welcome.”
The “diploma” Rugg received in May symbolizes a much larger gift commemorating the last 38 years. “This whole job has been a gift—not just in what I’ve been able to teach but because of the people I’ve met along the way. I’ve seen the joy of watching people develop over four years, including some of the ones that doubted some of their ability at first. But as soon as that switch clicked on, they knew what they wanted to do.”
For Rugg, that has always been the point: to connect, excite, entertain, and ensure that everyone stays fired up.
Matthew Bernstein ’04: From the moment you step into Stuart Rugg’s classroom, it’s clear you’re not just in for a lecture—you’re in for an experience. He sets the tone immediately: “Don’t call me Dr. Rugg—call me Stuart.” And then there’s his trademark slogan: “Stay Fired Up!” That humility, approachability, and deep respect for his students shapes every part of his teaching.
Stuart doesn’t just teach—he shares knowledge. He’s open to learning from his students, valuing their ideas and perspectives as much as his own. My roommate and fellow kinesiology major Scott Armstrong ’04 and I were blessed enough to be published with Stuart—an experience I will never forget, crunching numbers late into the night with Thai food. I can safely say I pushed his boundaries as much as he did mine. That mutual respect makes for a rich and collaborative learning environment where curiosity thrives.
One of many highlights of learning with Stuart were the class trips to Yosemite. More than just sightseeing adventures, they were immersive, thoughtful, and unforgettable lessons in observation, connection, and wonder. Stuart brings learning to life in ways that go far beyond the classroom.
If you were lucky enough to have Stuart Rugg as a professor, you left the classroom not only more knowledgeable but more inspired, more curious, and more grounded in what it means to be both a learner and a teacher. Thank you, Stuart—you’re truly one of a kind.
A kinesiology major at Occidental, Matthew Bernstein ’04 received his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Southern California University of Health Sciences. In 2010, he founded Elite Sports Medicine, which has grown from a single-discipline chiropractic practice into a multi-disciplinary medical facility specializing in chiropractic care, orthopedic treatment, pain management, and physical therapy.
