- January 9, 2025
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Scot Ruberg feels he was destined for the Florida sands where he became known as Scooter of the Beach, the lifeguard who has been keeping watch at Siesta Key Beach for over 30 years.
When he received his first pair of surf shorts in seventh or eighth grade, growing up in Illinois, he required a note from the principal to be allowed to enter class wearing the swim trunks.
“I think I was switched at birth with someone from Illinois, someone that was supposed to end up in Illinois and I was supposed to end up in Florida,” he said.
His passion for lifeguarding is still going strong, while he has gained even more recognition when he started offering his daily “beach reports” on social media a few years ago.
It has all served to make him an easily recognizable face in the community of Siesta Key.
Ruberg started lifeguarding in high school, and never stopped.
“I could have retired and pulled my pension 10 years ago. I've been lifeguarding for 40 years,” he said.
Having begun at a country club in Illinois, he later headed to Daytona Beach, serving as a lifeguard in the summers while attending community college, where he swam competitively.
Initially, it was the fun of the role that attracted him, but eventually, he chose it over completing his degree in hotel and motel management, after meeting Volusia County's older lifeguards.
“From the chief all the way down to the mid 20’s guy that had been there for two or three years, they all seemed very happy and had what they needed in life, and I kind of followed their path,” he said.
He said the fact lifeguards are not paid a large salary did not deter him.
“It's something that you know going into this, that you know you're not going to get rich, but you are going to be healthy and you are going to be happy.”
For Ruberg, lifeguarding competitions replaced swimming competitions, eventually bringing him to Siesta Key Beach in about 1989, when he attended the USLA Regional Lifeguard Competition with another lifeguard.
“We pulled into there, and we walked out onto the beach, and I see the white sand, and it was just like, ‘Oh my gosh."
A lifeguard descended the three-story tower formerly located on the beach, welcoming them to Siesta Key, and finding out they had no place to stay, he invited them to stay at his home.
Ruberg and his friends continued to return each year, bringing more and more people, which grew to include many others who were not lifeguards.
At the time he took up his position at the Key, the county was restructuring the beach patrol and many older lifeguards were moving on.
He decided to join an eight-week academy that was being held.
“They were bringing all these new people in, and I wanted to be one of them,” he said.
There was still the matter of finding a home, but he found one he considered perfect, in a nearby community he also adores.
“Siesta Key, obviously, was out of my reach. Sarasota was out of my reach. Gulf Gate was out of my reach, but barely. But I found this house in Osprey and fell in love with it, and it comes to be for sale — little, itty bitty, 1957 tongue-and-groove house.”
After calling the home's owner from the lifeguard station, he encountered a surprising coincidence.
“He goes, ‘Remember me from the lifeguard competition? My name's Gary Howle,” Ruberg recalled.
Despite learning the home needed significant repairs, including re-lifting, Ruberg was still eager to make the purchase. Howle ended up letting him to move in that same night, and Ruberg has lived there ever since.
Ruberg says any day now, he can claim his 30-year lifeguard pin, but he says his longevity in the role isn’t unique.
“Almost every single beach in the nation’s got a Scooter,” he said. “Almost every single one has that guy that just can't let go, that loves it so much.”
Over the years, across the variety of days from sunny to cold, from less crowded to more crowded, he sees the same people coming back—usually to the precise spots they visited before.
"It's like United Nations," he said. "It's every walk of life. It's every religion, it's every race. They all get along when they're at the beach, and that's what's magical about it."
The relationships he forms often grow to encompass multiple generations within a family.
“I have one German family in particular. They took pictures with me and their daughter for the last 25 years. I'd give it, and now she's got two kids of her own, and she's coming here with her husband on their vacation. Now I'm taking pictures with her kids," he said.
Over his 30 years, he's seen considerable changes to the island as well.
“On days when 20 years ago, there'd be 200 people out here, now there's five or 6,000 people, and yes, it has changed, but still as beautiful as it ever was, and the people that come here are amazing, and it's been a nice ride. And most people look down upon the growth, but it was inevitable growth because we were so late in development here.”
Even at his home, he says, his passion for lifeguarding is still evident in the form of décor that includes lifeguard signs, pictures of lifeguards and model lifeguard towers, as well as old license plates he collects from people all over the world, who move to Sarasota.
“You think you would outgrow that, that feeling, and I really don't think you have to,” he said. “Being a lifeguard kind of keeps you young, kind of gives you that excuse not to grow up.”
Six or seven years ago he began posting on social media, and has gained 85,000 followers on Facebook and 4,769 on Instagram for his content, which includes his daily beach reports that bring an informal touch to describing the beach conditions.
Yet the end of his time in the stand is in sight, with his retirement set for two years from now, something he calls "really kind of scary."
"Something you've been doing for 42 years. By then, you don't really know what else to do," he said.
However, he plans to continue on social media, posting the beach reports, as well as traveling the east coast to document every single lifeguard tower. (He’s already covered all the ones in Florida.)
But he doesn’t think it will be necessary to go far.
“People ask me all the time, what are you gonna do when you retire? Where are you going to go? And I say, ‘What do you mean? Where am I going to go? This is paradise. I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, I'll go on vacations, but this is my home base, forever, ever, and ever.”
