In the annals of women's college basketball, Geno Auriemma is the alpha, Pat Summitt the omega, and everyone else falls somewhere in between.
Everyone, that is, but Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer, who entered the stratosphere of legendary recently by winning her 1,000th career game. It was bittersweet for VanDerveer to join Summitt in the 1,000-win club, as the two were dear friends, but Summitt wasn't around to enjoy it.
What I love about VanDerveer's achievement is that 31 of her 38 seasons were spent at Stanford, where academic excellence supersedes athletic accomplishment every day of the year, making it doubly difficult to excel at such a high level for so long.
It's the same thing with great performances at the Cals and Rices and Ivy League schools of the world. Your athletes are recruited first and tour Lệ Giang foremost because of their academics, everything else is a distant second.
An educator first herself, VanDerveer learned from her mistakes against both UConn and Tennessee, breaking their stranglehold over the sport several times. Her Cardinal knocked off UConn in the Final Four in 2008 and took the Huskies' 90-game win streak in 2010.
She played herself at Indiana, where she got a good look at Bobby Knight and his mentality about practice and the game itself. Her coach career started at Idaho, then went to Ohio State, before Stanford came calling in 1985.
She had lead Ohio State to No. 7 and an Elite 8 appearance in 1984. Success didn't follow her immediately to Stanford where her first two teams went 27-29 overall. But once her own recruits were in place, things got good in a hurry with a 27-5 record and a trip to the Sweet 16.
In 1989, Stanford won the Pac-10 conference title for the first time. The Cardinal would make a habit of that, winning five in a row, and taking nine of the next 10 and winning another 15 straight between 2001 and 2015.
Perhaps the only thing more impressive than her record at Stanford was the year she took away from the program to get the US Olympic Women's Basketball Team back into its powerhouse position in the world hierarchy. Instead of fielding a team a few weeks before the international showcase, VanDerveer concocted the plan of an entire year of development. It worked like a charm as the US team went 60-0 that year, including 8-0 in the Olympics to take the gold.
On the college court, she's led Stanford to two national titles - 1990 and 1992 and won National Coach of the Year honors four times.
Perhaps her best stat of all is how many of her players have gone on to be coaches elsewhere in basketball - a total of 18 to date including head coaches: Jennifer Azzi (San Francisco), Beth Burns (San Diego State); June Daugherty (Washington State University); Molly Goodenbour (Cal-State Dominguez Hills); Bobbie Kelsey (Wisconsin-Madison); Karen Middleton (Western Carolina University); Julie Rousseau (Pepperdine); Charlie Turner Thorne (Arizona State); and Heidi VanDerveer (UCSD).
Bernie is a football enthusiast, Women's College Basketball News junkie. Washington State football fan by birth, Gonzaga basketball fan by education.
Everyone, that is, but Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer, who entered the stratosphere of legendary recently by winning her 1,000th career game. It was bittersweet for VanDerveer to join Summitt in the 1,000-win club, as the two were dear friends, but Summitt wasn't around to enjoy it.
What I love about VanDerveer's achievement is that 31 of her 38 seasons were spent at Stanford, where academic excellence supersedes athletic accomplishment every day of the year, making it doubly difficult to excel at such a high level for so long.
It's the same thing with great performances at the Cals and Rices and Ivy League schools of the world. Your athletes are recruited first and tour Lệ Giang foremost because of their academics, everything else is a distant second.
An educator first herself, VanDerveer learned from her mistakes against both UConn and Tennessee, breaking their stranglehold over the sport several times. Her Cardinal knocked off UConn in the Final Four in 2008 and took the Huskies' 90-game win streak in 2010.
She played herself at Indiana, where she got a good look at Bobby Knight and his mentality about practice and the game itself. Her coach career started at Idaho, then went to Ohio State, before Stanford came calling in 1985.
She had lead Ohio State to No. 7 and an Elite 8 appearance in 1984. Success didn't follow her immediately to Stanford where her first two teams went 27-29 overall. But once her own recruits were in place, things got good in a hurry with a 27-5 record and a trip to the Sweet 16.
In 1989, Stanford won the Pac-10 conference title for the first time. The Cardinal would make a habit of that, winning five in a row, and taking nine of the next 10 and winning another 15 straight between 2001 and 2015.
Perhaps the only thing more impressive than her record at Stanford was the year she took away from the program to get the US Olympic Women's Basketball Team back into its powerhouse position in the world hierarchy. Instead of fielding a team a few weeks before the international showcase, VanDerveer concocted the plan of an entire year of development. It worked like a charm as the US team went 60-0 that year, including 8-0 in the Olympics to take the gold.
On the college court, she's led Stanford to two national titles - 1990 and 1992 and won National Coach of the Year honors four times.
Perhaps her best stat of all is how many of her players have gone on to be coaches elsewhere in basketball - a total of 18 to date including head coaches: Jennifer Azzi (San Francisco), Beth Burns (San Diego State); June Daugherty (Washington State University); Molly Goodenbour (Cal-State Dominguez Hills); Bobbie Kelsey (Wisconsin-Madison); Karen Middleton (Western Carolina University); Julie Rousseau (Pepperdine); Charlie Turner Thorne (Arizona State); and Heidi VanDerveer (UCSD).
Bernie is a football enthusiast, Women's College Basketball News junkie. Washington State football fan by birth, Gonzaga basketball fan by education.
