Little League® International mourns the death of William Klug, a coach in El Segundo (Calif.) Little League. He was 39.
Born on June 19, 1976, and a resident of El Segundo, Calif., William Klug, Ph.D., was a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). On June 1, he was shot and killed inside an engineering building at the UCLA campus.
A volunteer coach in the El Segundo Little League, Prof. Klug was a member of the league for several years, coaching his son’s teams since Tee Ball.
“There’s a hole in the heart of El Segundo Little League,” said Peter Gianusso, President of the El Segundo Little League. “Bill was one of the kindest, most light-hearted, quiet people that you’d ever meet. Just a great nice guy all around, and to meet his death in such a horrific manner, is just shocking and unbelievable.”
At UCLA, Professor Klug conducted life-saving research that also involved colleagues from UCLA’s engineering, science, and medical faculty. He specialized in computational biomechanics and the mechanics of biological systems, such as cancer cells.
Professor Klug earned his undergraduate degree from Westmont College, in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1998. It was there he met his wife, Mary Elise Richter Klug. He had been a member of the UCLA community since his days as a graduate student, from 1998 through 1999, when he earned a master’s degree in civil engineering. In 2003, Prof. Klug earned a doctorate from the California Technical College, and then returned to UCLA that year as a faculty member of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Prof. Klug held appointments in mechanical and aerospace engineering and in bioengineering, and he was promoted to full professor in 2015.
Prof. Klug is survived by his wife, and their two children – a nine-year-old son; and seven-year-old daughter.
To offer support to the Klug family through GoFundMe.com, use this link: https://www.gofundme.com/billklug