This feature originally appeared in the 2022-23 Winter edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.




Isabelle Stadden was 14 when she swam in her first age group club meet at the University of Minnesota. A relative newcomer to swimming, she ended up recording a time that qualified her for the U.S. Olympic Trials.

"We were like, 'Whatever.' We didn't really know what the swimming world entailed at that point," said Stadden's mom, Jodi. "We were very naïve. We had no idea."

Not only does Isabelle Stadden know all about the swimming world now, the swimming world knows all about her. The Cal junior from Blaine, Minnesota, is one of the top backstrokers in the country and has become the face of the Golden Bears.

"It seems weird that other people know who she is," Jodi Stadden said. "To us, she's just Isabelle. I'm hoping it doesn't change who she is. It doesn't change how we feel about her."

Stadden registered three top-5 finishes at the NCAA Championships during her first two seasons at Cal and won the Pac-12 championship in the 200 backstroke in each year so far. She captured the title in the 200 back at last summer's Phillips 66 National Championships in Irvine and is a member of the U.S. National Team in both the 100 and 200 backstroke events.

At the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials, Stadden placed fourth in the 200 back and fifth in the 100 back. The top two in each event make the Olympic team.

"She is extremely humble," teammate Ashlyn Fiorilli said. "Obviously, she has a very big presence on the team. She is so determined and works so hard, but she also goes about it in the best way possible. I think she brings out the best in a lot of us and a lot of the team."

Maybe it's because she didn't necessarily expect to reach this level of swimming, or because the only reason she found herself in a swimming pool in the first place was to be with her youngest sister, Addison – but Stadden isn't necessarily comfortable with the attention she has been receiving. And she figures to get more, according to Cal acting director of swimming & diving Dave Durden.

"I always feel performance is an 18-month lag from training, and I think she is kind of scratching the surface in terms of performance as it relates to her training," Durden said. "I would characterize her training being at a higher level than her performance right now, and there is still room for her to improve on things. As a coach, that's a great thing. The performance piece is the final product."

Although Stadden comes from an athletic family – her younger sister, Kendall, is headed to Minnesota next fall on a soccer scholarship and is the kicker on the Blaine High School football team – she was a late-bloomer in swimming. She started rec swimming at age 12 and saw older kids competing on the local club swim team, and told her parents she wanted to join. After her Olympic Trial-qualifying performance at age 14, she traveled to New York for her first junior national swim meet and won the championship in the 100 back.

From there, Stadden was invited to a USA Swimming selection camp in Cleveland and began to compete at international meets all over the world.

"It probably wasn't until 2018 when I first started thinking about the Olympics," Stadden said. "Truthfully, I had no idea a normal club swimmer could get to that level. I just had no idea how it worked. It just wasn't even in the picture for me."

Although she had already emerged as one of the top swimmers in the nation, Stadden's victory at the Phillips 66 National Championships last summer served as a crucial benchmark for her. She was in a self-described rut for the first part of the calendar year and the victory in a field that included the fellow top backstrokers in the country brightened her outlook and set the stage for what has been a highly successful junior season so far.

"It really wasn't in the back of my mind that I could win until I got to the meet," Stadden said. "I went into that race not really believing in myself. But I knew in my head to just do what we practiced and it will work out. I looked up at the board and I immediately looked over to my team, and they were all super excited. It was just such a good feeling that I probably won't forget."

Stadden is the latest world-class backstroker to come through Cal's program and hopes to continue the Golden Bear legacy of Olympic backstrokers. At a recent alumni meet, Durden made sure Stadden shared the same lane as Natalie Coughlin, arguably Cal's greatest swimmer ever who earned 12 Olympic medals during her career – including a pair of gold medals in the 100-meter backstroke.

"She was so nervous because to her Natalie Coughlin is an amazing athlete and someone who won Olympic gold medals in her event," Durden said. "I wouldn't have thought she would have reacted that way because she's kind of on that track. Natalie is someone who moved through this program and accomplished the things that she is hopefully looking to accomplish in the backstroke events. You just forget the awe and the respect she has for someone like Natalie. But the goal is for Staddy to be that person for someone else five or six years from now."

Stadden knows what she has to do and who she has to beat to earn a spot on the 2024 Olympic Team in Paris. In her championship race at the Phillips 66 meet, she edged Alabama's Rhyan White – who won the Olympic Trials in the same event to land a spot in Tokyo for the 2021 Olympic Games. Stadden, White, Wisconsin's Phoebe Bacon and former Stanford swimmer Regan Smith are all expected to vie for the two Olympic berths available.

"You have to take it one step at a time. You can't overwhelm yourself," Stadden said. "Having one Olympic Trials under my belt is definitely going to be an advantage for next time. It was a bit of a disadvantage going into trials never having gone to a meet that competitive before. Being that nervous and having that much pressure on one two-minute race, and never having to have dealt with that before was just a lot for an 18-year-old."