Okay, so, I got really into this whole Tara VanDerveer thing recently. You know, the Stanford women’s basketball coach? She’s been around forever, and she’s, like, the winningest coach in college basketball history. I figured it’d be cool to really dig into what makes her so successful.
First, I started watching a bunch of old Stanford games. Just, you know, random ones I could find. I wanted to see how her teams played over the years. It was kind of a mess, to be honest, jumping around between different seasons, but I started to notice some patterns.
Then I started reading everything I could find about her. Articles, interviews, old newspaper clippings – you name it. I went down a few rabbit holes, reading up on players she coached and stuff like that. There are also many videos online so I watched them one by one. It took me several days to read and watch all of them and I made some notes.
My Discoveries
Here is what I got from those materials:
- She’s adaptable. Her coaching style wasn’t the same in the 90s as it is now. She changes things up based on the players she has. I found this is amazing.
- She’s tough. I read some stories that she can be pretty intense. The notes I made are full of this part. But it seems like the players respect her for it. And all of them said that she really cares about them.
- She’s a teacher. She doesn’t just tell them what to do, she explains why. I saw that in some of the practice footage I found. All the players are very smart.
After all that, I decided to try and put some of her ideas into practice myself. Not that I’m a basketball coach or anything, but I do manage a small team at work. I tried to take the time to explain things more thoroughly and adjust how I communicate with each person.
It’s been, well, a work in progress. It’s not like I suddenly turned into a legendary coach or anything. But I do think it’s made a bit of a difference. We’re communicating better, and I feel like I have a better understanding of what motivates each person on my team. This experience encouraged me a lot.
So, yeah, that’s my Tara VanDerveer deep dive. It was a lot of watching and reading and thinking, but I feel like I learned a lot from it. And I even managed to apply some of it to my own, much less glamorous, life. Maybe you can try it too!
