Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer wins lifetime achievement award

by on February 1, 2016 4:51 pm
Categories: Awards, Best of, Great reads, In the Spotlight

TARA VANDERVEER, head coach of Stanford’s women’s basketball team, was honored recently with the 2016 Coaching Corps Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2nd Annual Game Changer Awards in San Francisco.

VanDerveer’s award was presented by former Stanford All-American JENNIFER AZZI, who currently is head coach of women’s basketball at the University of San Francisco. The Game Changer Awards event supports Coaching Corps‘ mission to provide youth from under-resourced communities access to trained coaches and the benefits of sports activities and team-based learning.

The ceremony, which aired on Comcast Sports Net Bay Area over the weekend, included Stanford alumna and former basketball standout ROS GOLD-ONWUDE as one of the hosts.

In a storied 37-year coaching career, VanDerveer has established herself as one of the top coaches in the history of collegiate and international women’s basketball, and has 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. She is a four-time national coach of the year and 14-time Pac-12 Conference Coach of the Year. Before coming to Stanford, VanDerveer served as head coach for a combined seven seasons at Idaho (1978-80) and Ohio State (1980-85). She has accumulated an impressive 968-222 (.813) record in her 37 years as a collegiate head coach and an 815-171 (.827) record over 30 seasons at Stanford.

VanDerveer has led her Stanford teams to two NCAA Championships (1990, 1992), 11 NCAA Final Four appearances, 22 Pac-12 regular-season titles, 11 Pac-12 Tournament crowns and 27 trips to the NCAA Tournament. She also led 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.

In 1995-96 she served as head coach of the USA Basketball National Team, leading the team, which included Azzi, to a 52-0 exhibition record and then to the Olympic Gold Medal with a perfect 8-0 run at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Read the full story on the Stanford Athletics website.