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Tara VanDerveer’s curiosity has led her to countless unexpected situations. From swimming laps between Olympians Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel to making her own CDs on the piano, VanDerveer is a seeker.“I am interested in things,” she told me. “I am curious. I really enjoy meeting people and learning new things.”
When VanDerveer retired after the 2023-2024 basketball season, she had won more games than any college coach in history, men’s or women’s. As a head coach for 45 years at three different schools, VanDerveer racked up 1,216 wins (now second only to Geno Auriemma), won three national championships at Stanford and was named the national coach of the year five times.
But during our two conversations, it became clear that VanDerveer cared as much about leadership as results, so much that she’s working on a book about leadership and teamwork, making her the ideal person for Peak’s first Q&A about growth, mindset and what it takes to be successful.
Curiosity is not just VanDerveer’s defining characteristic; it’s the backbone of her leadership. Throughout her life, VanDerveer has leaned heavily on her desire to learn from every person and situation, often applying those takeaways to her own career. As a coach, she valued the importance of relationships and connections. She viewed teams as a family, and only if she really knew her players and coaches did she feel like she could give honest, difficult feedback.
Still, she learned she would never connect with everyone, so the most important thing for her was to always remain authentic.
“Look in the mirror and say, ‘I did the best I could,’” she said. “And we have a little saying: ‘Do your best and forgive the rest.’”
How do you think your curiosity factors into your own leadership style, and what does that style look like? I reach out for help. I don’t feel like I have to be the smartest one in the room. On any team I’ve played on, I was never the best player. But I was always interested in learning more about the game and studying the game and the strategies of the game. I’ll give you one example of exactly how I think of leadership. Have I told you about playing the piano?
No, you didn’t, but that sounds interesting. As a young girl, I took flute lessons from the number one flute teacher in the country. His name was Professor (James) Pellerite. He was at Indiana University and I took lessons from him. Lessons were $25 for half an hour. That’s back in the ‘60s, so that was a lot of money for my parents. And I had a beautiful flute. But I took lessons from him in the summer. In the winter, there was a top teacher who was really demanding, but we didn’t connect at all. However much I practiced, it was never enough. And as a 15-year-old, I just laid the flute down and said, “I’m not playing anymore.” And I loved playing the flute and I loved playing in the orchestra, but for me, those lessons didn’t work. They made me physically ill.
So as an adult, after the Olympics, I said, “I’m going to learn to play the piano. And I’ll teach myself.” My sister Heidi got me a keyboard for Christmas and within two weeks I realized I couldn’t teach myself, so I went out and vetted different people about who to get as a piano teacher. I got a teacher and she was phenomenal! I was making CDs after one year, and she understood I was coaching, so if I didn’t practice enough, she would say, “Hey, let’s just play duets.” I looked forward to my lessons; I loved them. And what I realized about a great teacher and a great leader is that they take you to some place that you can’t go by yourself. This teacher was so phenomenal and I still have three great CDs that I love listening to and people were just amazed. They were like, “Tara, how did you get so good? You must have a great teacher.” And, you know, I want to be a coach that I want to play for. I’m not perfect, but the connections I have with my former players, I cherish those relationships. I just really love the chance to get to know them and be someone who can take them somewhere that they couldn’t go by themselves.
Your story is such a good example of how forms of good leadership can be found anywhere. Right! Exactly.
There’s a story I’ve seen of how, when you came back from coaching the women’s team at the Atlanta Olympics, you spoke about the importance of the journey rather than the outcome. I think there was tremendous pressure on that team to win the gold medal. And it would have been really hard, but you’re going to learn lessons either way. I think the lesson of that gold medal was that there was nothing that was going to stop that team from winning the gold medal. The journey of that was great. It was incredible because everyone bought in at a really high level. I never had to take one player aside for one day or one minute and say, “Hey, you need to shape up.” But the journey was very demanding. There’s a certain thrill to excellence. I like watching the very best of just about any sport. Our synchronized swimming team won a national championship. I love watching them in the pool. I couldn’t do it. Our men’s gymnastics team, they’ve won five (consecutive) national championships. They’re going for six this year. They are thrilling to watch. When you look at the very best of something, I just love it. When you’re around excellence, it’s very inspiring to me.
It goes back to curiosity and how you think you can always learn something from watching people. I’m a copier!
I would love to know what you wanted to be when you were growing up. When I was a young girl, there weren’t really sports, so coaching was not an option because that wasn’t something that even existed. I really liked school. I thought, “Well, I’ll major in pre-med and go to medical school.” But I had a falling out with chemistry. I really loved biology and I liked physics, but I’m more of a history and english person if I’m honest because I like to read. I was OK at math, but I wasn’t crazy about it. So I majored in sociology with a minor in psychology, but I planned to go to law school. And I ended up falling into coaching backwards because my sister’s high school team needed some help, so I went and helped her team.
And you know how timing in life is everything? My timing was bad for playing but really good for coaching. I ended up going to the Cathy Rush basketball camps and working at the basketball camps. I volunteered at Ohio State. I had a job from 6 in the morning until noon checking IDs at the rec center, but then I ended up going to graduate school at Ohio State, and I was a JV coach there and varsity assistant. I had my job in Idaho and then it just happened. I never thought I was going to be a basketball coach because there weren’t coaches at the time.
And after all of that, you are writing a book about leadership. Why a book about leadership in coaching? Well, it’s funny. Alan Eagle is the author of several books, and Alan came to me and said, “Hey, I’d like to write a book about you.” I was like, “Honestly, I’m interested in other people, so let’s do one about coaching and involve all the Stanford coaches and pick their brains.” So it will be about leadership, teamwork, coaching, but it won’t be just me.
I’m sure the process of writing this book in some ways has caused you to reflect a lot. What’s your favorite memory or story from your journey of coaching? Well, what popped into my head right away was a young lady that I coached at Stanford, Olympia Scott. Olympia works at Nike now. She was an interesting recruit. She was not easy to recruit. I mean, she really kept to herself. It was really hard to get to know her. But when she came to Stanford, I loved coaching her. She called me one hour after she had her first child and I’m like, “Olympia, why are you calling me?” And she’s like, “I wanted to share this with you!” That is something that has really stuck with me. She’s just a really dynamic woman and to be part of people’s lives is what we, as coaches, that’s why you really do it.
And you know, Elise, it’s a very interesting time right now in college athletics. We live in a time now where it’s all about the portal and NIL money. I think NIL is a valuable thing for student athletes. And I transferred, so I’m not saying someone can’t transfer. But when you transfer three, four times, how are you going to have real relationships with your teammates and coaches? Where is the trust? Where is the commitment? Where is the resilience and the determination? And when people are paid to do volunteer work, when you’re paid to do community service, isn’t that an oxymoron? So I just think in some ways the current athletic landscape is twisted, and I don’t know that what is happening is always in the best interest of anyone.
How do you think we could move in a positive direction with all this? I want people to really enjoy the journey. If you’re a young person in a situation that is not going how you want it to go, you should really talk to people about it, and not just throw the baby out with the bathwater. Do you know what I mean? Just really understand yourself and say, “Here are my goals. Can this situation help me achieve my goals?” There is always going to be a thorn with every rose. No place is ever going to be perfect. But you want the rose to be bigger than the thorn.
If too many things are not going well, then it’s good to change. But I think for young people, it’s to see the big picture. To keep a journal, be in touch with themselves about what is important and what their priorities are. What works for you? What are your goals, and how can people help? Like when I said my piano teacher took me to a place I couldn’t get to myself. There’s no basketball player out there who can get to the top by themselves. You have to play on a great team, you have to have a coach that helps you, you have to be coachable. You have to want to listen, you have to want to learn.
I’ll leave you with one thing. We’ve talked so much about what you’ve learned over the years, but if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would you have benefitted from hearing the most? I think that probably if you’re a coach and you do what I did for 40 years, you have a screw loose. I think you internalize a lot of pressure to win. You just do it to yourself because you’re competitive. But if there was one thing I could tell my younger self, it would be to turn the temperature down in situations. Not look for ways to escalate confrontation, because sometimes you get into it and you get upset and maybe you do things later on that you regret. Sometimes I think your strengths are your weaknesses, and being too driven can be a weakness. Sometimes, all you know is what you know, and you are who you are, and if anything, I would be introspective and if I felt like I was going off track, I would ask for help and try to get back on track.
I think the hard thing is that with a lot of young people in sports, when you’re talking about the very, very best, there’s a gap between where they are and where they think they are. That’s a hard gap to navigate. Sometimes, you have players and parents who are delusional about their own abilities. Whether someone is starting, how much they’re playing, how much they are doing, and it’s like, . I like players who really give themselves up for a team. They don’t have to be the best players, but those are the players I’ve always worked best with.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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