Tara VanDerveer retires with her fingerprint all over the game

Michael Voepel, ESPN.comApr 10, 2024, 01:45 AM ET

Michael Voepel covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball, and other college sports for espnW. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.Sitting in a Las Vegas hotel last October, surrounded by Pac-12 signage that was on its way to becoming memorabilia of a bygone era, Tara VanDerveer peered into the future.

“I want to have a great year this year, and then just say, ‘Alright, hey, I’m up for this next challenge,'” VanDerveer said at the final Pac-12 media day. “Or say, ‘Well, maybe not.’ I’ll know that.”

Now, we all know.

She made her decision public Tuesday night: VanDerveer is retiring after 45 seasons in college coaching, the last 38 at Stanford.

She leaves with 1,216 career victories, more than any men’s or women’s coach in NCAA history. She won three NCAA titles, the last coming 29 years after the second, a testament both to her longevity and ability to evolve with the game. And she steps away after holding down an entire coast for her sport for generations, lifting up her peers to help build the Pac-12 into the nation’s top conference this past season.

As much as fans might miss VanDerveer, basketball will miss her more. VanDerveer was the consummate student of the game who provided a beacon for anyone who was looking. And her reach extends far beyond Stanford or the Pac-12.

Stepping away from Stanford for the 1995-96 season, VanDerveer led the U.S. women’s national team on a yearlong tour ahead of the 1996 Olympics. She coached the U.S. women to gold at the Atlanta Games, and their success — which started a gold-medal streak the United States hopes to extend to eight in Paris this summer — helped launch the WNBA in 1997.

Bizarre as it seems for Stanford and Bay Area rival California to be in the ACC, this is the college landscape we’re in today. But as college athletics changed, so did VanDerveer. Along with name, image and likeness opportunities, the transfer portal and social media, the geographically strange conference alignments are part of the adjustments that college coaches have had to make.

VanDerveer said last fall that the idea of playing in the ACC, which Stanford will join for 2024-25, wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker for her — despite the travel demands, especially for someone who turned 70 last summer. But it seems fitting that VanDerveer, who for nearly four decades kept the Pac-12 prominent in the national conversation about women’s basketball, says goodbye at the same time the league disintegrates.

VanDerveer, as old-school as she is from an experience standpoint, kept up with the times. That included being able to connect with players even if they were young enough to be her grandchildren.

“She’s serious about the game, treats it with all the reverence it deserves as a platform that empowers players beyond our wildest dreams … But doesn’t take herself too seriously,” former Stanford star Chiney Ogwumike said. “Tara will laugh, will dance, will always celebrate the team ahead of herself.”

VanDerveer grew up in New York state, played college basketball at Indiana and after school wasn’t sure what to do next. She attended a basketball class taught by Hoosiers men’s coach Bob Knight and went to his practices. But where was any of this going to take her?

First college coaching stop: a graduate assistant at Ohio State. Then she got a head-coaching job at Idaho. She thought at the time that she could stay there the rest of her life. But Ohio State came calling, then Stanford. In 1985, the VanDerveer era began on the Farm, and the success was almost immediate and sustained.

Her first recruiting class included guard Jennifer Azzi, who grew up near the University of Tennessee but became a Cardinal star, not a Lady Vol. Azzi played her last college game on Tennessee’s home court, however, when the Cardinal won their first national championship in 1990 in Knoxville.

Stanford won again in 1992, this time in Los Angeles, and most thought many more national championships were on the way for the Cardinal and VanDerveer.

But while the Cardinal kept making Final Fours and contending for championships, Stanford didn’t get its third NCAA title until the COVID-19 pandemic-impacted season of 2020-21. Displaced by Santa Clara County restrictions on contact sports, VanDerveer and her players endured a nine-week “road trip” before the NCAA tournament.

The hardships of that championship season made the celebration more meaningful to VanDerveer, who could put it all in perspective.

She had grown up in an era where her sports dreams must have seemed fanciful to most of those around her, including her parents. But VanDerveer, like other women of her generation, found ways to make their ambition into reality.

While at Pac-12 media day last fall, VanDerveer also talked about coaches who step away from the sidelines and then languish, because they don’t know what else to do. She promised that wouldn’t be her. From piano playing to swimming to card games, VanDerveer has always found the fun in life.

“I have a lot beyond basketball that I love to do,” she said. “So I’m not worried about when I retire.”