Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick has been outlasting people on Survivor since 2005, longer than most of the franchise’s current fans have been watching the show. She’s a two-time near-winner, a Division I athlete turned MLB wife, and one of two Traitors Season 1 castmates who went straight from that game back onto Survivor in the same year, alongside her longtime castmate Cirie Fields.
Before any of it, she was a lacrosse player good enough to start for four straight years at the Division I level.
A Division I Lacrosse Career
LaGrossa Kendrick began her college career at Temple University before transferring to Monmouth University, where she played Division I lacrosse and started for all four years. She was a three-time North East Conference All-Conference selection, an NEC Scholar-Athlete Award recipient, and a nominee for the conference’s Female Athlete of the Year, an athletic résumé that predated her reality-TV career by several years.
Palau, Guatemala, and Heroes vs. Villains
LaGrossa Kendrick’s Survivor career began on Survivor: Palau in 2005, where her tribe, Ulong, lost every single immunity challenge they competed in that season, an almost unheard-of run of bad luck. She still managed to finish 7th individually despite her tribe’s collapse. She returned for Survivor: Guatemala and finished as runner-up, then came back again for Heroes vs. Villains, cementing a reputation as one of the show’s toughest and most consistently competitive castaways across multiple eras of the format.
Marrying a World Series Champion
LaGrossa Kendrick married Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Kyle Kendrick on November 13, 2010. Kyle was part of the Phillies’ 2008 World Series championship team and played for the club through 2014 before a one-year run with the Colorado Rockies, a season in the minors, and a brief stint with the Boston Red Sox that ended his career in 2017. The couple has three children together: Sophia Marguerite, born in 2011, Kyle Jr., born in 2013, and Sloane Danielle, born in 2018. For several years, Stephenie also owned and ran a restaurant called Gigi’s, eventually selling it because keeping it running while the family relocated for Kyle’s career had become too much.
Reading Traitors Correctly, Then Getting Caught
On The Traitors, LaGrossa Kendrick allied closely with fellow reality veteran Rachel Reilly, and the two were instrumental in helping identify Cody Calafiore as a Traitor early in the season. Her own game ended in Episode 9, when she was murdered by the remaining Traitors, finishing just outside the show’s final group after one of the stronger reads of the season.
Back to Survivor at 50
With Kyle retired from baseball and settled into life as a stay-at-home dad, LaGrossa Kendrick found her way back to competition television. She turned down offers to appear on The Amazing Race and Dancing with the Stars before agreeing to join Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans in 2025, competing well into her career’s second act alongside Cirie Fields. Two decades after Ulong’s historic losing streak, she was still finding new ways to put herself back on a beach in front of cameras.