April 6, 2011
STANFORD, Calif. - You can count the number of women's basketball coaches in the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame on two hands.
And now you can count Stanford's Tara VanDerveer among them.
The Cardinal head coach became the ninth women's coach inducted on Monday.
She will be enshrined at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on August 12 in Springfield, Massachusetts as part of a 10-member class that includes Dennis Rodman, former Golden State Warrior Chris Mullin, Tex Winter, and Teresa Edwards, who played for VanDerveer on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team.
"This opportunity to be enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame is an incredible honor and I'm overwhelmed by it," VanDerveer said.
VanDerveer, 57, has an impressive list of career accomplishments. She earned her 800th coaching victory in December, becoming one of five Division I head coaches with more than 800 career wins.
Her 25-year tenure at Stanford includes two national titles (1990 and 1992), 19 Pac-10 titles and 10 Final Four appearances. Her coaching record at Stanford is 674-147.
She is a four-time national coach of the year.
As the coach of the U.S. Olympic team in 1996 - she left the Stanford program for a year to take the job - she led the U.S. team to a 60-0 record and the gold medal.
"I cannot imagine a more deserving recipient of this recognition," said Stanford athletic director Bob Bowlsby. "Tara has positively influenced the game of basketball and an entire generation of young women. Our entire department joins me in congratulating Coach VanDerveer as she is enshrined among the rarest of company in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame."
VanDerveer called her enshrinement "the ultimate compliment to a coach or a basketball player and I'm humbled and honored."
VanDerveer began her coaching career coaching her sister Marie's team in the months after she graduated from Indiana University.
But even before she took her place on the sidelines, she had a passion for the game, attending Indiana practices run by then-coach Bobby Knight and taking notes in a journal.
She began her coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Ohio State, working the 6 a.m. shift at the university recreation center to help pay her bills while she took classes as a graduate student.
She got her first job as a collegiate head coach at Idaho in 1978, moved to back to become the head coach at Ohio State in 1980 and came west to begin her career at Stanford in 1985.
The Cardinal finished 13-15 in her first season. They have not had a losing season since.
"I think it's a very appropriate honor for her, because of everything she's done and how successful she's been," said former Stanford All-American Jennifer Azzi, who was VanDerveer's first recruit at Stanford.
"The more I've gotten to know her post- playing career and now that I'm coaching, she's been an incredible mentor for me. And beyond coaching, she's a great person, and it's exciting to see someone like her be inducted.
"Beyond her success on the court, it means a lot to know her as a person."
VanDerveer has strong connections to Springfield. Her grandparents went met and went to college there. Her mother Rita was raised there and she spent many holidays there as a child.
"I still have cousins there," VanDerveer said. "It's going to be a family reunion. It's very surreal."
Michelle Smith, GoStanford.com