Stanford University’s Tara VanDerveer has broken the all-time record for the amount of games any college basketball coach has won — man or woman. She clinched the title on January 21, after Stanford beat Oregon State. During her four-decade career, she’s won 1,203 games, surpassing the previous record set by retired Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
VanDerveer, who is 70 years old, started her coaching career at the University of Idaho, then Ohio State, before she was hired as Stanford’s head coach in 1985.
“Stanford back then was certainly not what Stanford is today in terms of lore and legend and awareness of the school,” says Ann Killion, San Francisco Chronicle reporter covering Bay Area sports. “She built something out of nothing, and it's through hard, hard work and excellence, and never really deviating from her standards, and most definitely not having it be anything about her, or records of wins.”
Killion also points out that VanDerveer embraces change. “I think the secret sauce is that it's always about the new group of players, the new team. She doesn't dwell on the past. She adapts with the changes in the women's game, the inequities in the women's game, the new changes with NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) and the transfer portal. ... She gets excited every day about coming to the gym and doing her work.”