Staciana Stitts

Staciana Stitts Winfield (born September 12, 1981), née Staciana Stitts, is an American former competition swimmer and breaststroke specialist. She was a 2000 Summer Olympics and 1999 Pan American Games gold medalist, and 1998 Goodwill Games silver medalist.

Early life Staciana Stitts was born September 12, 1981 in Columbus, Ohio to Dane and Judy Stitts, and graduated Carlsbad High School in 1999. With a noteworthy high school swimming career, she was the recipient of All-CIF Southern Section honors four times, and in her signature event, the 100 breaststroke, was a CIF record holder and champion four times. As a High School Junior, she had the first ranked National High School time in the 100 breast of 1:01.50.

In July 15, 2000, at the Janet Evans Invitational at the University of Southern California, she finished third in the 200 breaststroke. In 2000, she trained with Hall of Fame Coach Dave Salo and his Irvine Novaquatics team in preparation for the Sydney Olympics.

2000 Sydney Olympics In the 2000 Olympic trials in Indianapolis, Indiana, Stitts placed second in the 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 1:07.79, qualifying her for the U.S. Team.

University of California, Berkeley In 2004, she graduated from the University of California with a Bachelor of Arts degree, as an American studies major focusing on Sports Sociology. She swam for women's coach Teri McKeever at Berkeley, a 30 year swim coach at Berkeley, who led the team to four NCAA national team championships during her tenure. As a college sophomore in 2000-2001, Stitts was a recipient of All-America honors swimming on the 200 and 400 medley relay team that captured a second place finish place at the NCAA Championships. That year she was an All-Academic honoree in the Pac-10 Conference, and won the Golden Bear Award for the second successive year.

She married Brett Winfield in September, 2004.

Coaching From 2005 to 2006, Stitts-Winfield worked at the College of Charleston as an assistant swimming coach. In June 2006, Stitts-Winfield was named an assistant swimming coach at University of Southern California (USC). She has been a motivational speaker at the National Alopecia Areata Foundation's Teens Conference Camp and has been a spokesperson for the Children's Alopecia Project.