Coaching Staff
Head Coach: Brittany Devalk
Coach DeValk grew up in Elk River, Minnesota where she began swimming competitively in 2006. She fell in love with the water and the sport instantly! While in Minnesota she competed for the STMA Sea Devils Club and Elk River High School. During her high school career, she specialized in Breastroke and swam on the Varsity team for 6 years (7th-12th grade)! She earned five varsity letters in the sport, Most Improved honors, competed at the Section 8AA meet each year, went to State in 2010 & 2011, and was Captain her senior year.
After her time at Elk River High School competing for the Elks, she swam for Hood College (Frederick, MD) for 1 year where she earned Top 8 & Top 16 honors at the NCAA Middle Atlantic Conference Championship meet, set 2 school records, and made Academic All-Conference Honors. She transferred and finished her college swimming career for the Regals at California Lutheran University (Thousand Oaks, CA). She set her fastest times each season at the NCAA Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship meet in the 100 & 200 Breast and 400 IM, was inducted into the CLU Scholar Athlete Society, made Academic All-SCIAC Honors, and was Captain her senior year.
Although her collegiate career has ended, she still trains and competes as a US Masters Swimmer. Her next “big” meet she is training for will be the Fina World Masters Championships in Fukuoka, Japan in July 2023 (It’s been postponed since 2021)! Prior to this meet, she made her first international debut for Fina Masters Swimming in July 2018 at the Pan-American Masters Games, where she took home 6 – 2nd Place finishes.
Coach Devalk has been competing herself for years. However, she first began teaching swim lessons in 2014 and moved on to coaching in 2016 with the Moorpark Aquatic Club as a Novice and Lead Age Group Coach. That same year, she began coaching with the Conejo Valley Multisport Masters Swim Team, a US Masters team. While in California she also coached with Golden Road Aquatics and the City of Carlsbad. Her first season as a head coach at the high school level came while student teaching during the 2017-2018 season with the Los Altos Conquerors (Hacienda Heights, CA). She continued as a head coach for the Coastal Academy High Stingrays (Oceanside, CA) from 2018-2020 and helped the school build a swim team from the ground up as she coached them for the first two years the high school had an athletics program.
Coach DeValk moved to Austin, TX in 2020 and found herself coaching right away at Waterloo Swimming as an Assistant Coach. Here at Anderson, she teaches OnRamps US History and an elective called The Ancient Greek World – she’s also taught World History. Coach DeValk is excited to continue her coaching career at Anderson High School!
Assistant Coach: Heidi Navarro
This will be Coach Navarro’s second year as an Assistant Swimming & Diving coach. Coach Navarro has been at Anderson High School for 18 years and is currently the Freshman A Volleyball coach, which she has been coaching for 12 years. Coach Navarro is also the Head Coach for Girls Track. In the past, she has also coached JV Girls’ basketball.
She moved to Austin from Oklahoma and attended Oklahoma University for three years. She is a graduate of Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. She and her husband, Stephen, have three kids: Blaise, Jada and Devin. Blaise graduated a year ago Anderson last year, Jada is a junior and Devin is a 8th grader at Murchison Middle School.
She is excited about working with Swimming & Diving this year and has high expectations for the teams. She loves making new memories with her teams and seeing the athletes reach their goals.
