Tara VanDerveer, an 11-time Pac-10 Coach of the Year, is the Setsuko Ishiyama Director of Women’s Basketball at Stanford University. Over the last 26 years, her philosophy and teaching methods have helped Stanford women’s basketball maintain a level of success that has paved the way for both program milestones and individual achievements. In 25 seasons at Stanford, she owns an amazing 674-147 (.821) record. She has led the Cardinal to two NCAA Championships, nine NCAA Final Four appearances, 19 Pacific-10 Conference titles, eight Pac-10 Tournament crowns and 23 trips to the NCAA Tournament.
Tara’s contributions to the sport of women’s basketball reach far outside the collegiate world. She became internationally known in 1996 when she guided the United States Olympic Women’s Basketball Team to the gold medal in Atlanta. Tara belongs to the Indiana University Hall of Fame, Women’s Sports Foundation Hall of Fame, Greater Buffalo Hall of Fame, and more recently the winner of the 2011 Athena Award. Tara graduated from Indiana University in 1975 with a B.A. in Sociology, where she was a Dean’s List scholar for three years.