Stanford Names Basketball Court to Honor Tara VanDerveer After Retirement as WCBB HC

Stanford will name its basketball court after legendary women's basketball coach Tara VanDerveer, the school announced Thursday.

VanDerveer coached the Cardinal for 38 seasons, retiring following the conclusion of the 2023-24 season.

Along with naming its court after VanDerveer, Stanford also announced one of its assistant coaching positions will be named after the former coach. Heather Oesterle will hold that position after she was hired in April.

Longtime Stanford benefactors Tashia and John Morgridge gave the endowment to fund and name the assistant coaching position as a gift.

"This endowment will go a long way to strengthening the future of Stanford women's basketball," VanDerveer said. "I have many wonderful memories of leading the women's basketball program at Maples Pavilion. It's an honor, and a little surreal, to know that my name will be linked to both in these ways, and I look forward to celebrating with all our fans this fall."

In her 38 seasons at Stanford, VanDerveer won three national championships—the latest coming in 2021—and appeared in 13 Final Fours. She led the Cardinal to 27 Pac-12 regular season titles, 15 Pac-12 Tournament championships and was named the conference's Coach of the Year 11 times.

VanDerveer is the women's college basketball all-time wins leader with 1,216 in her career, three games ahead of UConn's Geno Auriemma.

Before coaching at Stanford, VanDerveer was the head coach of Idaho State and Ohio State, but spent most of her career with the Cardinal.

Stanford announced that there will be a public celebration and official unveiling of the Tara VanDerveer Court in November ahead of the 2024-25 season.