Not just for academics — SHS has produced world-class athletes

Photo by Neal Malhotra

These days, the school is known mostly for its academic prowess, often ranking in the top of ratings lists. But in the past few decades, a select few athletes  achieved national prominence. Among these athletic Hall of Fame  greats were swimmer Carrie Steinseifer, wrestler Patricia Adura Miranda and skateboarder Mark Suciu.

Carrie Steinseifer: Olympic gold-winning swimmer

In her sophomore year, Class of ‘86 alumna Carrie Steinseifer won the gold medal for the 100-meter swimming sprint at the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles. Finishing with a time of 55.92 seconds, she tied with American swimmer Nancy Hogshead for the medal. That same year, Steinseifer went on to win two other gold medals — the 4×100-meter freestyle relay and the 4×100-meter medley relay — as part of the U.S. relay teams.

Being among the best swimmers in the world, Steinseifer shattered local records. In fact, she broke the school’s 100-yard freestyle in her freshman year with a then-record time of 56.5 seconds at CCS.

Steinseifer’s other notable athletic achievements include her participation in the 1983 Pan American Games in Venezuela and 1985 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Tokyo. She won gold medals in the 4×100 medley and 4×100 freestyle relays in Venezuela and the 200-meter freestyle, 4×100 freestyle relay and 4×200 freestyle relay in Tokyo.

During this time, she was sponsored by Arena, a sportswear company and trained with the West Valley College Aquatic team. Unfortunately, her strict training schedule often forced her to sacrifice school and took a huge mental and physical toll on her. Due to the constant chlorine exposure, her skin dried out and nerves sometimes prevented her from focusing on her sport.

But despite the challenges she faced, she is remembered as the school’s most decorated swimmer.

Patricia Adura Miranda: bronze medalist in wrestling

During her time at Redwood Middle and SHS, Class of ‘97 alumna Patricia Adura Miranda — seven time U.S. national champion in women’s wrestling — became the first female to join her middle and high school wrestling teams in all of California. She went on to wrestle with Stanford University’s Division I roster — which was comprised of only men at the time — from 1997 to 2002. In her senior year, she became the second woman in NCAA history to defeat a male athlete in an open competition.

After graduating at Stanford, Miranda was accepted to Yale Law School, but deferred her admission to train for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Focusing on wrestling full-time, she had an outstanding 2003-2004 wrestling season and when she won the 2004 U.S. Open, Miranda earned the top seed for the first U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

She advanced directly to the best-of-three series, winning both of her matches against Clarissa Chun, and was invited to represent America at the Olympic Games with three other women wrestlers. It was the first Games to include women’s wrestling and Miranda won a bronze medal competing in the 48 kg women’s weight class.  

She also advanced in her career through representing the U.S. at four World Championships in women’s freestyle, earning silver medals in 2000 and 2003 and a bronze in 2006. Miranda also participated in the Pan American Games, placing first in 2002 and first and third in 2003.

However, Miranda’s groundbreaking accomplishments didn’t come without hardship. When she committed to having a wrestling career in high school, Miranda embraced it as an essential part of her identity. 

In a 2019 Falcon interview, she said, “I came up with a basic principle that at the very least, I want to know myself before I die. Mentally, emotionally, physically — know who I am.”

Miranda knew she wanted wrestling to be a significant part of her life, but her father refused to let her continue with the sport her freshman year. Miranda’s parents emigrated to escape Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1960s, taking refuge in Canada before immigrating to the U.S..

Her father constantly scratched out her name from wrestling tournaments and even threatened to sue SHS to keep her out of wrestling, believing that education, not sports, was the only way for Miranda to be successful in life.  

Miranda, however, eventually came to an agreement with her father: As long as she maintained a 4.0 GPA, she could continue wrestling. That agreement put her on a path for an outstanding career and helped her pave the way for the future of women’s wrestling.

Although her athletic career ended after she lost to Jessica Medina at the best-of-three series at World Team Trials in 2009, her wrestling legacy has continued through The Miranda Medal. The Open Mat, a resource for men and women’s college wrestling, awards this accolade to the best women’s college wrestler annually. Most recently, she was a prominent voice in reversing Stanford’s decision to cut its wrestling program at the end of the 2020-21 academic year. 

Mark Suciu: skateboarding savant

“The store clerk asked me, ‘hey what do you wanna be when you grow up?’ and I was like, ‘pro skater,’ and he was laughing,” Class of 2010 alumnus Mark Suciu said on The Nine Club podcast with Chris Roberts episode 196.

Now, Suciu, the 2021 Thrasher Skater of the Year with 226,000 Instagram followers, has become a prominent figure in the skateboarding scene, in both content creation and competition. Since he began skating at age 6, he made waves by producing more skateboarding videos and magazine interviews before graduating high school than most pros do in their entire career. He posts weekly videos with stunning backgrounds and impressive tricks over all kinds of street obstacles. 

“He released tons of incredible video parts which seemed more like he was filming with friends than working on a project,” fellow skater Lui Elliot said.

He garners hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube videos he’s featured in. One video he made in collaboration with Thrasher Magazine, which features him skating around a destination location for 6 minutes, received 1.5 million views.

In addition to being a popular content creator, he is currently ranked 254th in the world in competitive skateboarding and 144th in street skating. 

He began his competitive career at age 14 in The Game of Skates, a head-to-head skateboarding tricks battle, and eventually won a few local ones. Before he graduated high school, he received a welcome email from Habitat Skateboards to join their team.

When entering college, Suciu committed to skating full time professionally. Unfortunately, he soon injured his ankle and was forced to take a break from skateboarding. During this time, he studied Creative Writing and Literature at Temple University. After two years Suciu moved to New York City to attend The New School.

In these few years of schooling, he noted being burned out and not wanting to skate as much. 

“I went to school. I didn’t want to skate anymore,” Suciu said in his interview with Elliot. “I was bummed at the idea that my body would still want to skate.”

During the transition period from graduating college and going into professional skating, Suciu jumped into stardom with his video Cross Continental made with Thrasher Magazine. His “classic, raw, street skating” style eventually earned him Skateboard Mag’s 2012 “Year’s Best AM” title and a spot on the Adidas Skate team. 

Over the coming years, Suciu made other big projects, signing with other sponsors like RVCA and Thunder. But his biggest video came out in 2020, Verso.

The video, produced by filmmaker Justin Albert, offers stunning visuals alongside impressive skating. It is different from most other skate videos in that the video does not try to focus on Suciu’s face — it is all about the tricks themselves and the story it tells.

As for his competitive career, he skated in the Street League in 2019 and placed second in the U.S. Olympics qualifying, but faced a pivotal decision between the Olympics or the Thrasher Trips that were going on at the same time. Ultimately, he chose the latter, giving up his Olympic dreams and pursuing his content creation career.

This choice ultimately panned out, as he became Thrasher’s Skater of the Year in 2021.

Suciu has not competed since 2021 but is still active on social media making skate videos. He currently has multiple sponsorships from big companies such as Adidas Footwear, Spitfire Wheels, Thunder Trucks, RVCA Clothing, Jessup Griptape and Atlas Skate Shop in addition to riding for Habitat Skateboards.