Tara's Talent
The lessons Tara VanDerveer taught me and the world about value and acceptance.
I swallowed hard as my heart pounded out of my chest waiting for the ball to finally be tossed into the air.
As I waited for the official to commence the game, I wondered if this game, this most important game, was going to be like the others: thrilling, surprising, and ultimately, dominating.
Was this all a dream or was this really happening? I thought to myself, with slimy palms and a dry throat. Were we really this good?
I panicked as I allowed a devious doubt to slowly creep into my psyche. Suddenly, with the weight of the world on my narrow shoulders, my eyes darted from the court to the sideline, and there stood my final answer: Tara VanDerveer; silently reserved, yet calculated and in full control. With just one look at her, I knew. I knew this game would be exactly like the others, and there was absolutely nothing I was more sure of than this fact.
With a cheerful sigh of relief, I finally sat down on my living room floor, staring at the big screen television and there I relaxed to enjoy the Gold Medal game. My confident intuition matched the outcome perfectly, as I smiled the entire time with wide, incredulous eyes.
It was August 4th, 1996, and I was a 9-year-old girl watching the Olympic Games for the very first time in my life.
After this day, all I ever dreamed about was playing for the woman who not only changed my life, but women’s basketball forever. I had just witnessed the impossible, the unthinkable, and I vowed to never give up the hope that someday I too could belong to the miracle that the entire world had witnessed.
Looking back, covering the span of over 20 years, I now see and understand that Tara VanDerveer’s greatest contribution was relaying value and acceptance of women’s basketball to a sometimes skeptical outside world audience through her incomparable influence on Team USA, the WNBA, and Stanford University.
The enormous impact she has made on my life pales in comparison to the impact she has made on millions. In this moment, I honor her legacy as she has laid the foundation for a greater future—for myself and for countless others.
What we know about Tara—the gold medals, numerous championships, and now record breaking wins—is why we admire and respect her from afar. But her profound influence on the WNBA is a fact that is so little known to the world, mostly due to the humility she possesses as a person.
David Stern
David Stern and I in 2013
David Stern, the late revolutionary commissioner of the NBA, was in a position to provide a financial and professional future for women’s basketball in the United States when he considered establishing and funding a WNBA. In seeing his vision through, Commissioner Stern took a great risk. However, he knew inherently that something this worthwhile and long lasting would need to be fundamentally supported—mostly financially. David Stern trusted Tara above anyone else, because he saw the complete potential of women’s basketball solely through her eyes in 1995.
“This isn’t about bronze. This isn’t about silver. This is about gold,” USA Basketball president C.M. Newton told us at our first team meeting.
It was a charge that guided my every thought and action in the ensuing months. I also remembered the words of David Stern, commissioner of the NBA, which had a big stake in our success. The NBA was handling all the marketing and promotion for the team, and it was also mulling over the idea of starting its own women’s pro league. Our team would test the market to see if America was ready.
“The only person who can mess this up,” Stern told me one day over lunch, “is you.”
Those words would wake me up at night sometimes after a bad day at practice or a disappointing game. I always believed we would win, but sometimes I wondered how.
-Shooting From the Outside, (Avon Books, 1997)
Value
Tara created value in women’s basketball through the way she empowered and continues to empower her players by teaching the critical life skills of discipline and daily commitment. For Tara, life is a series of routines and rigorous rituals to be practiced regularly. The ordinary play witnessed by few in a training session becomes the extraordinary play that is witnessed during a high stakes competition watched by millions. This is the kind of value that translates across all boundaries.
Acceptance
Tara established acceptance for a basketball culture that highlights aggression from women in non traditional roles. She did it effortlessly too, by showing the world that the game of basketball is more than just a team sport. A perfect example of this is her emphasis on passing the ball—assisting others in finding the right shot not just for the individual, but for the team. In Tara, we also see the beauty of one rebound, one steal, one blocked shot. There is no weakness in one, but rather a strength in working together and accepting everyone’s strengths and weaknesses as a unit.
Stanford
Tara’s ability to recruit top talent is a significant component to her testimony as a women’s basketball coach.
The greatest honor of my basketball career was playing for Tara at Stanford University. What she best taught me was the infinite thrill of taking others to the top with me. Under Tara’s tutelage, it wasn’t simply about me shining; it was about being excited about other people shining. At Stanford, this was all too easy for me to execute.
Final Foundation
Everything has come full circle for me as I find myself in Atlanta, ready to rebuild my life. I’m most looking forward to continuing her legacy by reinforcing the classy foundation that has already been set, paved and laid out so graciously by Tara VanDerveer, for myself and for others too numerous to count.
Four time All-American, WNBA Champion, Edutainer and Coach