Blue Tide Aquatics’ Andy Korda Named Head Coach at Waterloo Swimming

Waterloo Swimming will welcome Andy Korda as the team’s new head coach starting this fall. Korda will be transitioning to Waterloo from his previous head coach position at Blue Tide Aquatics, which he held since 2019.

Korda has years of head coaching experience under his belt at the club level, especially in Texas. His first job as a head age group coach was at Katy Aquatics, one of the state’s biggest clubs, which is based in his hometown. Korda contributed to the team’s national reputation by developing NCSA Junior National finalists, Junior National finalists, and National finalists.

He later became the head coach of the City of Midland Aquatics program where he notably developed Olympian Natalie Hinds. While Hinds trained for the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials with the pro team in Georgia, she still credited her success to Korda’s coaching and mentorship.

After Hinds secured her spot on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic team, she wrote a thank you letter to Midland. In that letter, she acknowledged Korda’s influence on her journey by saying, “It was with Andy that I started to believe my dreams could finally become a reality.”

After 10 seasons with Midland, in 2012, Korda became the head age group coach at FLEET where he oversaw the elite Senior and Gold training groups. Following his time there, in 2019, Blue Tide Aquatics in suburban Houston named Korda as its head coach. 

Last year in the fall of 2021, he also picked up a scholastic head coaching position at the British International School of Houston.

Korda was awarded the Gulf Swimming LSC Senior Coach of the Year in 2017. He has been a Head zones coach multiple times as well as a Gulf All-Star team head coach twice. In 2018, Korda was chosen to be a speaker at the ASCA Texas Legends Coaches Clinic, and he was selected the next year to be a speaker at the ASCA World Clinic.

Korda has shared his knowledge and drills that will improve a swimmer’s underwaters more so in recent years. At the ASCA World Clinic, he gave a talk titled, “Traveling Underwater.” He was also invited onto SwimCloud’s webinar in 2020 to provide race analysis and practice sets to improve swimmers’ underwaters.

Since the club was formed in 2010, Waterloo Swimming’s head coach was Mike Varozza, who is also the owner and director of the swim team.

Blue Tide Aquatics will not need to seek out or promote anyone for the head coach position. Per their website, BTA has Chris Collier listed as the official head coach after previously being named to the role on an interim basis.

Korda hired Collier at BTA after Collier was fired from nearby The Woodlands Swim Team. Collier was let go due to his arrest during the Winter Junior Championships in Austin in December 2021.

At the 2022 Short Course Texas Age Group Championships (TAGS), Waterloo placed 3rd overall while BTA finished 25th. At the 2022 Long Course TAGS Championships this summer, Waterloo took 4th and BTA ended in 41st.