Early Years
VanDerveer was born on June 26, 1953, to Dunbar and Rita VanDerveer, who named their first child "Tara" after the plantation in Gone with the Wind. She was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, a part of Greater Boston, but grew up in a small town in West Hill, near Schenectady, New York. Her parents were interested in a well-rounded education. Her father was studying for a doctorate at the school now known as the University at Albany. He took the family to Chautauqua in the summer, where she immersed in arts as well as sports. At the age of ten, her parents bought her a flute, and arranged for lessons. Two years later, one of the premier flutists in the world was staying in Chautauqua, and her father arranged for lessons with this distinguished teacher. Although she learned to play, she did not enjoy the experience, and gave up the flute in ninth grade. The love of music stayed with her though, and in later years she would take up the piano.
There were no sports teams for girls when she was in high school, but she played a number of sports including basketball, in rec leagues and pickup. When she was younger, she played with both boys and girls. As she entered her high school years, the girls dropped out for other interests, so she was more apt to play with boys. To help make sure she would be chosen, she bought the best basketball she could afford, so if the boys wanted to play with her basketball, they would have to pick her.
Her father wasn't completely supportive of her basketball interest, calling her in from the neighbor's basketball hoop, telling her, "Basketball won't take you anywhere. Come in and do your algebra." Tara was equally certain that algebra wasn't going to take her anywhere. Her family moved to Niagara Falls in her sophomore year in high school. The house in West Hill had a gravel driveway, making a basketball hoop impractical, but when her parents got her a hoop for Christmas when they were in Niagara Falls. By then, she thought she was too old for basketball, although she would take it up again after she transferred to Buffalo Seminary, an all-girls college preparatory school, in her junior year. She ended up earning a place in the Buffalo Seminary's Athletic Hall of Fame.
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