Joan Rosazza

Joan Rosazza grew up in Torrington, Connecticut and learned swimming at the Connecticut Women’s Swim League from Doris O’Mara Murphy, an alternate on the 1924 Olympic swim team. Rosazza later swam for Purdue University, from which she graduated in 1960 with a degree in education, and the Lafayette Swim Club in Indiana. In 1956 she placed second at the Olympic Trials in the 100 free, and was third that year in the AAU indoor 100 freestyle. At the Olympics she was overtaken in the last 25 metres by Faith Leech to lose out on the bronze medal in the 100 free, but Rosazza did get a silver medal in the relay. She won two US titles in the 4x100 free relay at the AAU indoors in 1956-57, and in 1956 at Daytona Beach, Florida swam anchor on the world record-setting 4x100 freestyle relay team. Rosazza later settled in Massachusetts, where she earned a masters’ degree in counseling and psychology from Boston College. Rosazza has worked as a teacher at Winchester High School, and as a special education teacher and math tutor at Concord-Carlisle High School. In 1999 she received the Unsung Heroine Award, later called the Massachusetts Women in Athletics Distinguished Service Award.