Tara VanDerveer has been a head coach since age 24 and had a decorated 45-year career celebrated on the court at Maples Pavilion following the No. 8 Cardinal win against Oregon State, 65–56.
Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer passes Mike Krzyzewski as college basketball’s winningest coachhttps://t.co/3sLeeaIE83
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) January 22, 2024
Cheered by thousands of supporters and a couple of dozen former players on hand to cheer her as College basketball has a new winningest coach.
On Sunday she earned career victory No. 1,203 surpassing Duke legend Mike Krzyzewski for the most in college basketball history. The Hall of Fame coach has been shining on women"s basketball for 4 1/2 decades.
The longtime steward of the Cardinal women’s program recorded 1,203-267 overall and 1,051-216 over 38 seasons at Stanford.
She also has 17-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year with five national Coach of the Year honors, and three NCAA titles with Stanford in 1990, "92, and 2021. In the 1996 U.S. Olympic team, she led to a gold medal at the Atlanta Games during a year away from Stanford.
College basketball Coach VanDerVeer said at the ceremony.
"I am very overwhelmed, and I’m not usually lost for words, but it’s pretty impressive, all these people here, all the former players coming back. When I was a little girl, I loved basketball from the third grade on. I had no idea why. But my parents did not share that. They told me, Tara, forget basketball; basketball will never take you anywhere, and [later in life] I would send them postcards from all over the world."
She also added,
"I love the game of basketball. I loved the strategy of it … and to be able to take a young person to a place they couldn’t get to by themself. And I’m so proud of our team and how hard we’ve worked and how much better we can be."
