Larry Mai, associate professor of anthropology, died peacefully in his home on Feb. 12. Mai had been battling the effects of a severe stroke for nearly three years and was about a month away from retirement. He would have turned 68 this April.
“He was the favored professor at [the University of California, Los Angeles] to TA for, and students everywhere loved him,” said Barbara LeMaster, chair of the Cal State Long Beach anthropology department, via e-mail. “He was a great teacher.”
The Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, took student polls of the most-liked professors on campus and Mai would always be in the top five, said Marcus Young Owl, CSULB professor of anthropology.
Mai was a senior author of the Cambridge Dictionary of Human Biology and Evolution, a book praised by people inside and outside of his field.
The American Journal of Human Biology called it “an immensely useful resource for instant illumination” while the Journal of Comparative Human Biology called it “an excellent research and study tool both for professionals of different disciplines.”
Mai was born in Texas, but his family moved to Fresno, Calif., when he was very young. In high school, he played football and was recognized as an All-American fullback.
After high school, he attended UC Berkeley on a football scholarship. He went on to play for an undefeated team.
After suffering from a football-related spinal injury, he joined the Army in the 1960s and was a tank driver stationed in Germany.
Once he returned from the Army, he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from UCLA, but soon gained an interest in genetics, making a transfer to the field of anthropology. He continued his education at UCLA and earned a doctorate degree.
Mai first started teaching at CSULB in the late 1990s. He had heard there was an anthropology position open at the university while he was having lunch at a Del Taco in Barstow.
He was making a trip back from Temple University in Philadelphia to California when he ran into a friend and CSULB professor of archeology at the Barstow Del Taco.
The friend yelled, “Larry, Larry! They need a physical anthropologist at Cal State Long Beach,” Owl explained.
After a semester at CSULB, he took a position in Alaska, but was told a semester later and after all his lessons were videotaped, that he was no longer needed, Owl said.
Mai then returned to Long Beach, taught as a lecturer and later became a full-time professor.
He is survived by his wife Janine, son Eric and daughter Cynthia.
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