Alana Wilson
Assistant Coach
Email: [email protected]
Swimming History
I began swimming competitively at the age of 4 in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where I was born, and my parents worked for
Saudi Aramco. While swimming on the Dhahran Youth Swim League (DYSL) in Saudi, I broke multiple National records
and was the all-around Age Group Champion multiple times as I aged up through the years. I traveled to the USA every
summer to compete in the AAU Junior Olympics and won multiple events. In 2003 I was awarded with the AAU Joel
Ferrell Award for Outstanding Performance.
I continued to swim while in boarding school, for high school, at Cranbrook Kingswood in Bloomfield Hills, MI and was a
member of several All-American relay teams. I moved to Texas for university where I swam all four years at
Southwestern University (SU). Throughout my career at SU I was a 4-time SCAC conference champion (200 breast x2,
400 IM, and 100 breast), broke the 100 breast SCAC championship record, and broke over 10 school records. I achieved
NCAA "B" qualifying times in both the 100 and 200 breast, but missed out on selection for the meet by 0.06 seconds (I
was the 20th placed swimmer in the 100 breast and this was the ONLY event where they accepted only 19 swimmers in
the meet, all of the other top 20 qualified for the meet got to go – and yes…I’m still a little bitter!).
After college, I never stopped swimming and immediately joined the Woodlands Masters Swim Team (WMST) in 2009. I
have participated in multiple local meets and at Masters Nationals Competitions alongside Coaches Laura and Ross!
Education History
I graduated from Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX with a B.S. in Biology and minor in Business. I completed a
Masters of Medical Science in Physician Assistant Studies from Nova Southeastern University in 2013. I worked as a
surgical physician assistant performing microscopic reconstructive and plastic surgery for several years before the
demands of motherhood took over.
Coaching History
I started giving private lessons at the age of 12 or 13 in Saudi Arabia. I am very passionate about proper stroke
technique having attending several in depth stroke analysis camps and clinics. I began volunteering with DYSL’s 6 &
Under group at 13 as in water demonstrator and tiny child wrangler. When visiting my parents in Saudi during school
breaks, I continued to help coach and teach private lessons to younger swimmers throughout high school and college. In
2009 I was the head coach of the Arabian Falcons (our AAU travel team) for the 2009 AAU Junior Olympics where our
small team placed 6 th out of 32 teams.
I briefly did some volunteer coaching with SSAN shortly after grad school before taking my physician assistant board
exams. In 2017 I began coaching 3-4 workouts a week with WMST, and have continued doing so ever since. In 2020 I
became the President of WMST after several years as a member at large and Vice President. In 2021, my daughter was
finally old enough to join SSAN and I once again began volunteer coaching. Since then, I have mostly worked with the
lower developmental groups and occasionally the learn to swim lessons program.
I am extremely passionate about proper technique, and while it is not always possible to correct every element of every
child’s stroke at every practice, I do my best to observe each swimmer and adjust their technique as often as I can. On
top of volunteer coaching, I am also an Official (Referee) for SSAN where you will see me on the pool deck at meets. I
pride myself on ensuring that the rules of swimming are equally applied across all swimmers!
Personal Life
I live in Spring, TX with my husband Jacob (also a member of WMST), and our two children Analeigh (9 who swims in
Developmental Gold) & Liam (6 who swims in Developmental White 2). Aside from swimming, I enjoy doing quilting and
embroidery. I learned how to quilt when I was 13 and have never looked back. My family enjoys going skiing in Austria
in the winter, and taking cruises at spring break or summer break together.
