Tara Van Derveer - Coaching Career

Coaching Career

After completing college, VanDerveer took a year off, with a plan to return to law school. When she ran out of money she returned home. When her parents realized she was doing little beyond playing chess and sleeping, they urged her to help with her sister Marie's basketball team. Her sister was five years younger, and by the time Marie reached high school, the school had basketball teams for girls. The experience was exasperating in some ways, as the girls did not take it seriously, but VanDerveer realized coaching was something she loved.

VanDerveer sent out resumes to twenty schools, look for a graduate assistant job, which is an unpaid position. She only got two responses, one of which was for Ohio State, where the athletic director had remembered her from Indiana. To prepare herself, she attended a coaching clinic taught by Knight. When she had attended his practices, she had stayed out of sight, but enrolled in a class, she followed her parents advice and sat up front. One of the coaches asked if she was lost. Knight embarrassed her with one of his questions, but she didn't stop attending, although she moved back a few rows. She was hired as an assistant coach to the varsity and the head coach of the JV.

In her first year, she coached the JV team to an 8–0 season. That caught the attention of Marianne Stanley at Old Dominion, who offered her an assistant coaching position. VanDerveer wanted to finish her masters degree, so accepted a paid position at Ohio State, at a salary less than a quarter of the Old Dominion offer.