Who are Tara VanDerveer’s 10 greatest players in Stanford history?

Jennifer Azzi is one of the Stanford women’s basketball alumni who plan to be at Maples Pavilion this weekend in hopes of seeing history. Coach Tara VanDerveer, in her 38th season at Stanford, is two wins from becoming the all-time leader in NCAA coaching victories, men’s or women’s. VanDerveer will reach the milestone if the No. 8 Cardinal can beat Oregon on Friday and Oregon State on Sunday.

Who are the greatest players VanDerveer has coached at Stanford? Azzi is one of them, and she still has some of the recruiting letters VanDerveer sent her in the 1980s.

“I found them a couple of weeks ago,” said Azzi, who helped the Cardinal win the 1990 national championship. “One of them was sort of trying to get me to, I guess, believe in her and be more open to communication with her.”

Azzi laughed a bit and added, “Because I wouldn’t say it was like she came in my living room on the recruiting visit and I was blown away.”

VanDerveer took over at Stanford in 1985, and Azzi was part of her first recruiting class that arrived the next fall. Azzi was from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, about 25 miles west of Knoxville, home of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers. So Azzi knew about charismatic coaches; Tennessee’s Pat Summitt was just down the road.

Yet after playing a little while at Stanford, Azzi realized she and VanDerveer were more alike than she initially thought.

“I think that’s the case with a lot of us that played for her,” Azzi said. “It’s simply that shared desire to be as good as you can be.”

Now the chief business development officer for the two-time WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces, Azzi represents how much VanDerveer influences the sport at all levels through the players she has coached. From fellow coaches to WNBA players, executives and those involved with the league’s union, to broadcasters and analysts, former Cardinal players are making a difference.

“There’s so many Stanford success stories out there,” said VanDerveer, who has led the Cardinal to 14 Final Four appearances. “They come back and say to me, ‘When things get tough, I learned how to be resilient at Stanford. I learned how to balance my time at Stanford. I gained confidence at Stanford. So I’m really proud of that.”

When VanDerveer passed Summitt for the all-time victories lead among women’s basketball coaches in 2020, we ranked VanDerveer’s top 10 players based solely on their Stanford careers. Now, we broaden that criteria to include their professional playing careers and other ways they impact the sport. Here are the 10 greatest players to play for VanDerveer at Stanford.

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