Staciana Stitts

Staciana Stitts was a breaststroke specialist who swam the 100 metre breaststroke at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and won a gold medal with the US medley relay team. She won four gold medals at the Pan American Games, winning the 100 breaststroke and medley relay in 1999 and 2003. Stitts won a silver medal at the 1998 Goodwill Games in the 100 breaststroke and added a silver at the 2002 World Short-Course Championships in the medley relay.

Stitts swam at U Cal Berkely, graduating in 2004. In 2000 she and her Cal teammates broke the world record in the short-course 4x50 metre medley relay with 1:49.23.

Stitts overcome a childhood trauma when she developed alopecia areata at age 12, which caused her to lose her hair. She credits having to overcome that trauma as helping her become a stronger person. She became a motivational speaker at the National Alopecia Areata Foundation’s Teens Conference Camp and has been a spokesperson for the Children’s Alopecia Project.

After college Stitts became a coach, working as an assistant coach at the College of Charleston from 2005-06 and then at the University of Southern California starting in 2006.