Pitts was born October 21, 1960, to Clarice and William Pitts in
Baltimore,
Maryland. He grew up in a working-class neighborhood, raised by a single mother. In his memoir, Pitts discussed that he had a debilitating
stutter as a child and was "
functionally illiterate" until about age 12. He attended
Archbishop Curley High School, an all-boys
Catholic high school in Baltimore. He went on to
Ohio Wesleyan University, but spent summers in
Apex, North Carolina. He graduated in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and speech communication. ==Career==