Women’s college basketball legend and former Indiana women’s basketball player Tara Vanderveer announced her retirement from coaching on Tuesday night.
Vanderveer just completed her 38th season as head coach at Stanford, as she led the Cardinal to the Sweet 16 for the 29th time before falling to NC State. In January, she set the record for most wins by a college basketball coach, in either the men’s or women’s game. She finished her career with an astounding 1,216-271 record, along with national championships in 1990, 1992, and 2021.
“A true pioneer and champion of the sport, Tara has been an inspiration to many she has had the chance to impact in her illustrious career,” IU head coach Teri Moren said through IU’s social media accounts. “The game of women’s basketball is in a better place because of her dedication and passion to the development of the game over her 45 year career. Hoosier Nation wishes her the best in her next chapter.”
Vanderveer played for IU from 1972 through 1975, and she helped those teams go a combined 48-13 and reach an AIAW tournament Final Four in 1973.
She took Bob Knight’s coaching class as a student, and sat in on some of his practices, which both taught her a lot. Vanderveer was inducted into the IU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1995, and she was awarded a Bicentennial Medal in 2021.
She’s seen IU women’s basketball’s rise from afar over the last several years, and it’s filled her with pride.
“I’m a definite, proud alum. Indiana has always had this love affair with basketball and now it’s with women’s basketball, too, and that’s very exciting,” Vanderveer told The Daily Hoosier in an email in November. “The numbers of fans they have, the great teams they have. It’s absolutely fantastic and really fun to be riding this wave of support and enthusiasm for women’s basketball.”
The Cardinal hosted IU at Maples Pavilion in November, and they handed the Hoosiers a lopsided early-season defeat. Indiana is set to host Stanford in the return leg of the home-and-home series next season — that game would’ve been Vanderveer’s first game back at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall since she coached Ohio State in the 1980s.
“(Playing this game) does bring back a lot of memories of being there, when you’re thinking about facing them and seeing the candy cane warmups. I mean, it’s Indiana,” Vanderveer said. “I have great memories of being there and it’s just a fantastic job that Teri Moren has done. They have 17,000 fans coming to games. It’s very exciting the enthusiasm that is there for women’s basketball.”
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