Tara Vanderveer
Legendary Stanford Women's Basketball Coach
National Advisory Board
Tara Vanderveer received PCA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.
In a storied career, Tara VanDerveer has established herself as one of the top coaches in the history of collegiate and international women’s basketball, and been inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (2011) and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame (2002).
An ambassador for both Stanford University and the sport of college basketball, VanDerveer has enjoyed an unprecedented level of success through an energetic and positive approach to the game. A four-time national coach of the year (1988, 1989, 1990, 2011) and 14-time Pac-12 Conference Coach of the Year, VanDerveer, who prior to coming to Stanford served as head coach for a combined seven seasons at Idaho (1978-80) and Ohio State (1980-85), has accumulated an impressive 1,021-231 (.815) record in her 38 years as a collegiate head coach and an 860-180 (.827) record over 31 seasons at Stanford.
On Feb. 3, 2017, she joined Tennessee’s Pat Summitt and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski as the only Division I coaches with 1,000 career wins when Stanford beat USC in Maples Pavilion, 58-42. VanDerveer has more career wins to her name than 341 of the country’s 349 Division I programs.
VanDerveer has led her Stanford teams to two NCAA Championships (1990, 1992), 12 NCAA Final Four appearances, 22 Pac-12 regular-season titles, 12 Pac-12 Tournament crowns and 29 trips to the NCAA Tournament. She also guided Idaho to one AIAW Tournament appearance and Ohio State to a pair of NCAA Tournaments while twice being named Big Ten Coach of the Year.
Her teams have won 20 or more games 32 times, including each of the last 16 seasons. VanDerveer built Stanford into a national power almost immediately upon arrival and has maintained an unparalleled level of success for more than three decades. On Feb. 26, 2016 the Cardinal won its 1,000th game in program history, becoming the seventh Division I institution to reach the milestone, and did so in fewer games than all but two other schools. VanDerveer has accounted for 860 of Stanford’s 1,036 total victories since its first varsity season in 1975 (83 percent).
Perhaps one of VanDerveer’s most notable attributes is her ability to connect with student-athletes and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of college athletics. Considered one of the nation’s premier recruiters, VanDerveer and her staff routinely bring top classes to The Farm. The Stanford staff brought in the likes of Jennifer Azzi and Kate Starbird, both of whom won women’s basketball’s highest individual honor – the James Naismith National Player of the Year Award (Azzi 1990; Starbird 1997) – as well as Candice Wiggins, who in 2008 joined Azzi (1990) as Stanford’s second recipient of the State Farm/WBCA Wade Trophy Player of the Year Award.