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Jeff Walz

A Kentucky native, Jeff Walz returned to the Bluegrass State in 2007 to become head coach of the University of Louisville women’s basketball team. He has led the Cardinals to four NCAA Final Fours, including national championship game appearances in 2009 and 2013. Before joining Louisville, he helped Maryland win the 2006 national championship as an assistant coach.

Walz began stuttering as a young child and attended speech therapy throughout elementary school. In his Stuttering Foundation Q&A, he recalls sometimes avoiding classroom questions because he feared stuttering. Sports gave him another way to express himself.

Coaching brought new speaking demands, including media interviews that initially caused considerable anxiety. Over time, Walz became more comfortable with himself and more open about his stuttering. He has used his public platform to encourage others who stutter to pursue their ambitions.

His advice to children is to embrace who they are and avoid letting others define them by their speech. He encourages parents to listen patiently, offer support and allow children to finish their own sentences. For Walz, growing confidence and self-acceptance have been central to his experience as a person who stutters.

• Read the Stuttering Foundation’s Q&A with Coach Jeff Walz

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Marilyn Monroe

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926, Marilyn Monroe, according to Wikipedia, is known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2025) by her death in 1962.

Carly Simon

Carly Simon began stuttering severely when she was eight years old.

Mel Tillis

Mel Tillis, born Lonnie Melvin Tillis, was an influential figure in country music, both as a songwriter and a performer. His journey to fame was marked by overcoming personal challenges, including a stutter that he turned into a defining part of his public persona.

Winston Churchill

Seeking to "remove Winston Churchill's stutter by second guessing the diagnosis" indicates neither a truthful retelling of history nor an informed opinion about a complex speech disorder, say experts in the field of speech-language pathology.

Recent news reports that quote Dr. John Mather, a Washington physician, as saying that Churchill's stutter "is a lie" brought adamant critical response from specialists in the field of stuttering and fluency disorders.

Bob Love

The late Bob Love dreamt about being a great public speaker since his early days in Bastrop Louisiana, even though, as a young man, he could barely put two words together, let alone speak a full sentence.

In spite of his severe stuttering disability, Bob Love, the son of a sharecropper, rose to become a Chicago Bulls NBA superstar, whose records were eventually surpassed by Michael Jordan. Throughout his entire athletic career, Bob Love kept his stuttering a secret from the fans who adored him, thinking he could do his "talking" on the basketball court.

Famous People Who Stutter