At the end of every season, Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer thinks she’s done coaching.
“I quit for about a day,” she said, laughing. “I’m like, ‘Oh God, I can’t take this anymore.'”
Then she plays with her dogs, goes for a swim, soaks in the world around her. And the feeling quickly passes; she’s already thinking about next year’s team and its journey.
A coach the past 45 years, VanDerveer reached a pinnacle Sunday: Stanford beat Oregon State for VanDerveer’s 1,203rd career victory, passing former Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski for the most wins in NCAA basketball history.
“She’s wired to do this,” said Jennifer Azzi, who played for VanDerveer on Stanford’s first NCAA title team in 1989-90, as well as VanDerveer’s gold-medal-winning Olympic team in 1996. “There are just those coaches who are in it because it’s who they are, what they do and love every minute of it. Not that there are never frustrations or ups and downs. But the core of her is 100% in it.
“Someone like her doesn’t really get burned out,…
