Tara VanDerveer

Tara Ann VanDerveer (born June 26, 1953) is an American basketball coach who has been the head women's basketball coach at Stanford University since 1985.

VanDerveer was born on June 26, 1953, to Dunbar and Rita VanDerveer, who named their first child "Tara" after the plantation in Gone with the Wind.

She was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, a part of Greater Boston, but grew up in the small community of West Hill, near Schenectady, New York.

There were no sports teams for girls at her first high school, but she played a number of sports including basketball, in rec leagues and pickup.

When she was younger, she played with both boys and girls.

As she entered her high school years, the girls dropped out for other interests, so she was more apt to play with boys.

To help make sure she would be chosen, she bought the best basketball she could afford, so if the boys wanted to play with her basketball, they would have to pick her.

VanDerveer's family moved to Niagara Falls in her sophomore year of high school.

Though she had never played basketball at the high-school level, VanDerveer took the game up again after she transferred to Buffalo Seminary, an all-girls college preparatory school, in her junior year.

She ended up earning a place in the Buffalo Seminary's Athletic Hall of Fame.

VanDerveer was determined to play basketball in college.

Unable to afford tuition at her first choice, Mount Holyoke, she chose to attend Albany where her father had studied for his doctorate.

The team was not highly competitive, but she knew the coach, which helped with the decision.

The team turned out not be challenging enough.

Although naturally a guard, she shifted to the center position, and led the team in many categories, despite being a freshman on the team.

She decided she needed a bigger challenge so she talked some of her friends into attending the AIAW National Championship, the precursor to the NCAA tournament.

At the event, VanDerveer watched many teams, took notes, and decided where she wanted to go.

She chose Indiana where she transferred and spent three years, making the Dean's List each of the three years.

In her sophomore year, 1973, she helped the team reach the Final Four of the AIAW championship, losing in the semi-finals to Queens College.

At that time, the men's basketball team at Indiana was coached by future Hall of Fame coach Bobby Knight.

The Indiana women's coach, Bea Gorton, patterned her style of play and practices after Knight, and it was the observation of the style of play at the AIAW event that persuaded VanDerveer to choose Indiana.

VanDerveer enrolled in Knight's basketball coaching classes at IU and regularly observed his team's practices.

VanDerveer carried what she learned from Knight to her practices at Stanford.

After completing college, VanDerveer took a year off, with a plan to return to law school.

When she ran out of money she returned home.

When her parents realized she was doing little beyond playing chess and sleeping, they urged her to help with her sister Marie's basketball team.

Her sister was five years younger, and by the time Marie reached high school, the school had basketball teams for girls.

Though frustrated by the lack of commitment from the girls on her team, VanDerveer discovered a passion for coaching basketball.

Inspired by the experience, VanDerveer applied to twenty colleges and universities for an unpaid graduate assistant position.

She received only two responses, one of which was for Ohio State, where the athletic director had remembered her from Indiana.

She was hired as an assistant coach of the varsity team and the head coach of the JV squad.

In her first year, she coached the JV team to an 8–0 season.

That caught the attention of Marianne Stanley at Old Dominion, who offered her an assistant coaching position.

Designated the Setsuko Ishiyama Director of Women's Basketball, VanDerveer led the Stanford Cardinal to three NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championships: in 1990, 1992 and 2021.

VanDerveer is the 1990 Naismith National Coach of the Year and a ten-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year.

She is also one of only nine NCAA Women's Basketball coaches to win over 900 games, and one of ten NCAA Division I coaches – women's or men’s – to win 1,000 games.

She stepped away from the Stanford program for a year to serve as the U.S. national team head coach at the 1996 Olympic Games.

VanDerveer was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002.

On December 15, 2020, she passed Pat Summitt for most wins in women's college basketball history.

On January 21, 2024, she won her 1,203rd game as a head coach, becoming the head coach with the most wins in college basketball history, women’s or men’s.