Bank of America – Chiney Ogwumike – Tara VanDerveer taught Stanford girls’s basketball to be ‘nice within the little issues’

Flanked by a Naismith Corridor of Fame trophy and a number of WN(BA) MVP awards in her residence workplace, Lisa Leslie smiles, beaming widest as she pulls out an image of an Olympic gold medal printed on laptop paper and guarded by a transparent plastic sleeve.

Greater than two dozen years in the past, Tara VanDerveer — who stepped away from her head-coaching duties at Stanford to educate the U.S. girls’s nationwide crew — gave each member of Workforce USA an identical piece of paper to embody their purpose of profitable Olympic gold within the upcoming 1996 Atlanta Video games. It was a small gesture to suggest the significance of delivering the final word achievement for the American girls — not realizing that their success on the world stage can be the catalyst for what would grow to be the longest-standing U.S. girls’s skilled sports activities league.

Right this moment, VanDerveer continues to be inspiring Leslie, who says she continues to use the coach’s classes and mantras to on a regular basis life.

“[VanDerveer] gave all of us this medal earlier than we ever received our first gold medal, and we at all times had this to have a look at,” Leslie mentioned. “After which all of those quotes. ‘In the event you assume you’ll be able to, you’ll be able to.’ I really like all of those optimistic quotes and affirmations that [she] has given to us.”

On Tuesday, Coach Tara continued to do what she has at all times executed: win. Stanford (5-0), the No. 1 girls’s school basketball crew within the nation, beat Pacific 104-61 and took its coach’s win whole to 1,099. With that, VanDerveer surpassed the legendary Pat Summitt of Tennessee for probably the most victories all time within the girls’s sport.

There have been no followers to rejoice the achievement. No media scrums to take care of. Only a coach and her crew.

However in the event you actually know Coach Tara, you’ll perceive that that is how she prefers it. She continually preaches that “much less is extra.” That technique has labored for many years, and her routine is easy: examine, scout, work arduous. Rinse and repeat. She has been doing it each day for greater than 40 years at Stanford, profitable video games and studying beneficial classes alongside the way in which. All through these experiences, Coach Tara naturally grew to become a trainer, with an incredible influence on so many.

Nobody understands this higher than Billie Jean King. In October 2018, the icon and former Grand Slam champion teamed up with the Girls’s Sports activities Basis to create the Tara VanDerveer Fund for the Development of Girls in Teaching, which honors her work and keenness for ladies in sport. King calls Coach Tara a “true chief, coach, trainer that has taught us win on and off the courtroom.”

It’s one factor to observe historical past and one other factor to be part of it. As a highschool junior from Cypress, Texas, in 2008, I took an official recruiting go to to Stanford and was blown away. It was the “Nerd Tremendous Bowl.” On the pregame tailgate for a Stanford soccer crew that was making nationwide waves boasting the likes of Andrew Luck, Richard Sherman and Doug Baldwin, I used to be as an alternative floored by the possibility to satisfy U.S. Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice John Roberts and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier than the sport.

Coach Tara set that up for me. At that second, I knew that in Tara I had discovered my new trainer, one who would push my horizons on and off the courtroom past my creativeness. I performed for Stanford from 2010 to 2014.

The spotlight of my freshman 12 months was ending UConn’s 90-game profitable streak. However within the locker room after that victory, Secretary Rice remembered from that pregame tailgate a few years earlier than that I had an curiosity in worldwide relations. She grew to become my main advisor, finally handing me my diploma on commencement day.

Then at some point through the 2017 WN(BA) season, I used to be invited by Billie Jean King to current a lifetime teaching award to Coach Tara, and on the identical occasion, I watched Secretary Rice win the tennis legend’s namesake management award.

That’s when issues began to come back full circle. Studying and attaining is a mindset it’s best to encompass your self with every day, particularly when it’s arduous. Belief me. I do know this as a result of I nonetheless get well timed reminders from Coach Tara that she is accessible for movie classes as a result of there may be at all times room for enchancment — it doesn’t matter what job you might be doing or how profitable you might be.

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr usually makes use of Coach Tara’s campus, not solely to coach his crew but in addition as a possibility to select the mind of one of many sport’s finest. On Monday, at some point after N(BA) preseason motion tipped off, Kerr spent a portion of his media availability acknowledging Coach Tara’s milestone.

“There are quite a lot of coaches which have had success for brief intervals of time, and only a few have been capable of maintain excellence for many years,” he mentioned. “The checklist could be very quick, and [Tara is] on that checklist.”

Former Stanford quarterback John Elway, whose daughter, Jessica, performed for Coach Tara in 2004-05, echoed these sentiments.

“I’ve realized you can — as she has confirmed — win on the courtroom in addition to off the courtroom and within the classroom,” the Denver Broncos common supervisor and president of soccer operations mentioned Sunday on the sector at Bank of America Stadium earlier than his crew beat the Carolina Panthers.

Coach Tara and all the pieces she has completed appears to be a narrative about basketball, however the reality is, it has at all times been about household. Coach Tara has devoted her life to consideration to element and utilizing her eager eye to assist others succeed. That easy factor has now separated her within the historical past books.

Earlier than she noticed me, she noticed my older sister, Nneka Ogwumike. She noticed greatness in a younger Nigerian-American woman from Houston, Texas, who had three sisters — not realizing they’d grow to be All-Stars and champions.

Once I requested my massive sis what Coach Tara taught her, she responded with out hesitation: “You could be nice within the little issues.” These little issues can take you a good distance.