4 many years of excellence will formally be honored at Maples Pavilion on Sunday afternoon.
Tara VanDerveer, a reputation with out peer in school athletics, may have her title affixed to the Maples court docket previous to the Stanford girls’s basketball recreation in opposition to Gonzaga at midday on Sunday. VanDerveer, who coached Stanford from 1985-2024 with a one-year break to teach america Olympic girls’s basketball group in 1996, retired because the all-time teaching wins chief (1,216) in NCAA Division I basketball.
“That’s going to be awesome,” new Stanford head coach Kate Paye stated of the court docket unveiling. “And I think the best way that we can honor her is to play extremely hard, extremely well on Sunday.”
Former longtime Stanford Cardinal head coach Tara VanDerveer, heart, cheers with former Stanford participant Cameron Brink, prime left, throughout their NCAA recreation in opposition to Le Moyne at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, Calif., on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (Jane Tyska/Bay Space Information Group)
Paye performed for VanDerveer on Stanford’s 1992 nationwide championship group and coached below her for 17 years on the Cardinal bench. She greeted VanDerveer earlier than her first recreation in cost on Monday in opposition to Le Moyne and welcomed VanDerveer into the postgame locker room after incomes her first win.
VanDerveer, who received three nationwide championships at Stanford, continues to be a relentless presence for the Cardinal, even when she isn’t round on daily basis anymore. Beginning on Sunday, her day by day presence will probably be felt in a tangible method even when she isn’t bodily within the constructing.
“There’s nobody cheering harder for our team than Tara,” Paye stated after the win over Le Moyne. “It was great to have her in the locker room after, and it’s really, really special.”
VanDerveer reworked Stanford into the preeminent West Coast girls’s basketball powerhouse throughout her tenure. The Cardinal made 14 Last Fours along with her in cost, plus a fifteenth when assistants Amy Tucker and Marianne Stanley Staley co-led Stanford throughout VanDerveer’s hiatus in 1995-96.
Beginning in 1987-88, VanDerveer’s third season, Stanford made the NCAA Event each season wherein it was held. She handed former Duke males’s coach Mike Krzyzewski for essentially the most wins in school basketball historical past final January and nonetheless holds the file, though UConn girls’s coach Geno Auriemma entered the season three wins behind VanDerveer.
VanDerveer coached a storied lineage of Cardinal All-People. The custom started with level guard Jennifer Azzi, the star of Stanford’s 1990 nationwide title group, and continued with Sonja Henning, Val Whiting, Kate Starbird, Kristin Folkl, Nicole Powell, Candice Wiggins, Jayne Appel, Jeanette Pohlen, Nneka Ogwumike, Chiney Ogwumike, Alanna Smith, Kiana Williams, Haley Jones and Cameron Brink.
The varsity introduced the distinction in Could, precisely a month after VanDerveer introduced her retirement following her thirty eighth season because the Cardinal head coach.
An assistant teaching endowment fund in VanDerveer’s title was additionally established final spring as a present from longtime Stanford benefactors Tashia and John Morgridge.
Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer coaches her group in opposition to Oregon throughout an NCAA basketball recreation at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, Calif, Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
“I have many wonderful memories of leading the women’s basketball program at Maples Pavilion,” VanDerveer stated in a launch issued by the college in Could. “It’s an honor, and a little surreal, to know that my name will be linked to both in these ways, and I look forward to celebrating with all our fans this fall.”
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Stanford President Richard Saller stated within the faculty announcement that VanDerveer’s “dedication to ensuring high academic and athletic standards drove our women’s basketball program to new heights. Tara represents the best of Stanford: unsurpassed excellence with deep humility.”
“We will probably be happy to call the court docket in her honor and hope that it serves as a relentless reminder for Cardinal student-athletes of her ardour, care and beauty.”
In 45 years as a head coach at Idaho (1978-80), Ohio State (1980-85) and Stanford (1985-95, 1996-2024), VanDerveer amassed an NCAA-record 1,216 victories. In 38 seasons at Stanford, she led the Cardinal to 3 NCAA championships – 1990, 1992, and 2021 – and 14 Last Fours.
