Ethan Sugg had already decided the University of South Alabama was where he belonged. He just wasn’t expecting the phone call that came during an Honors College retreat.
University President Jo Bonner and Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. Andi Kent were on the line. Sugg stepped away from a team-building exercise and learned he had been selected as South’s 2026 Board of Trustees Scholar — the university’s highest academic honor.
“I was shocked at first,” Sugg said. “I didn’t think I would be getting this award, but it was a welcome surprise.”
What the Award Covers
The scholarship is awarded based on a combination of ACT or SAT scores, grade-point average and the rigor of a student’s high school coursework.
It is renewable for up to four years and supplements other institutional scholarships. It can also support undergraduate research, study abroad and other educational opportunities — a structure that makes it as much a funding source for what a student does during college as a discount on attending.
A Family Precedent
There was an unusual precedent in the Sugg family. Ethan’s older brother, Noah, received the same honor in 2024.
The similarities run well past the scholarship. Both graduated from Fairhope High School. Both are accomplished musicians and Honors College students. Both plan to attend medical school. Both play multiple instruments — Noah’s primary instrument is double bass; Ethan’s is bassoon.
But Ethan Sugg arrived at South with interests and ambitions distinctly his own, and with a habit of finding connections among subjects that appear unrelated.
Where Music Meets Neurology
Sugg is particularly curious about new treatments for neurological conditions that have proved effective even though researchers are still working out exactly how they interact with the brain.
That gap — between a treatment that works and an explanation of why — is one of the connections he wants to understand.
Music offers him a way into the question. It stimulates many regions of the brain along with muscle responses, he noted, and at bottom, “That’s all electricity and chemistry.”
At South he plans to study biochemistry and music, with medical school eventually leading, perhaps, toward neurology or cardiology.
Familiar Territory
South was not an unfamiliar campus.
Sugg’s mother, Dr. Rebecca Sugg, is a professor of neurology at the university. Through his own physician shadowing and other experiences around USA Health, he met physicians, residents and other healthcare professionals. He was also already acquainted with people in South’s Department of Music.
“I have connections to the departments I’m interested in,” he said. “It just felt like the right fit.”
A Listening Assignment and a Storage Closet
Sugg’s path to the bassoon began with a homework assignment.
During seventh grade at Fairhope Middle School, as students were returning from the COVID-19 shutdown, his music teacher gave the class several pieces to listen to and asked them to write about what they heard. Sugg chose Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”
The piece opens with a bassoon playing in the very top of its range — a sound that is famously strange, and one that has unsettled and fascinated listeners since its 1913 premiere.
One instrument caught his attention.
“The bassoon just stood out to me,” he said. “It was like nothing I had ever heard.”
By eighth grade he was learning to play, largely on his own, during breaks in a storage closet at Fairhope Middle School.
When he couldn’t play or rehearse, he stayed involved by filing music and helping other students read their parts. Once he could play again, he went back to the storage closet and worked to catch up.
From a Closet to a Statewide Honor Orchestra
That unconventional start led to years of orchestral performance, including two youth orchestras and three years in a statewide honor orchestra.
At Fairhope High School, he served as principal bassoon and drum major — two roles that demand almost opposite skills. Principal bassoon is a seated, precise chamber role. Drum major means standing in front of a marching band and running it.
At South, he switches instruments entirely, playing saxophone with the Jaguar Marching Band.
The Rest of the Schedule
In high school, Sugg earned a 4.55 weighted grade-point average while completing demanding International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement coursework, alongside an unusually broad collection of activities.
At Fairhope, he participated in Model United Nations, tutored chemistry, and was involved in organizations and activities ranging from honor societies to Dungeons & Dragons.
Keeping all of it straight requires a system. Sugg carries a pad of sticky notes and a collection of colored pens to map out each day — what he needs to accomplish, where he needs to be, and what he needs to bring.
Asked how he balances so many interests, he laughed.
“Very delicately,” he said.