In these unsettling times when scoring a package of toilet paper from your local store can be a cause for celebration, we could use a dose of normalcy back into our lives.
As Bay Area sports fans, we know just where to look for it. Sometimes we just need a reminder.
It’s a place here that gets overlooked for its unfailing dedication to consistency — Stanford, where, no matter what else goes on around it, the women’s basketball program under Tara VanDerveer just keeps rolling along.
It’s now been 40 years since VanDerveer took over Stanford’s dilapidated women’s program and began a stunning renovation that’s produced two NCAA championships, 12 Final Four appearances, 32 trips to the NCAA tournament and 25 Pac-12 titles.
The best reminder of the sustained excellence at Stanford comes today – on the anniversary of the Cardinal’s last NCAA women’s basketball championship in 1992. Here’s the best testament to a place where things get done the right way: It’s now been 28 years since VanDerveer last brought home a national championship and no one in their right mind believes she doesn’t still belong on Stanford’s bench.
For her part, the 66-year-old VanDerveer remains as content as ever at the school. “I go to work happy every day,” she has said.
Still, some days are happier than others, especially since sports and many ways of our lives were shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic.
When the NCAA announced two weeks ago its men’s and women’s tournaments were canceled due to the virus, it meant VanDerVeer wouldn’t have a chance to surpass Tennessee legend Pat Summitt for most career coaching victories ever. VanDerveer, with 1,094 wins, will now go into next season just five wins shy of becoming the sport’s measuring stick for success.
But when the games were called off, VanDerVeer main thought of what her players would be missing.
“I mean, obviously, I’ve gone to a lot of NCAA tournaments myself as a coach, I hope that there are a lot in front of me, (but) I feel the unfinished business for the most part, for me, is the seniors,” VanDerveer said. “Especially somebody like Nadia Fingall, who came back after an ACL. You know, the seniors not getting their last chance. And also even for the freshmen who came from high school, this would be their first NCAA tournament.
“Just all in all, the experience of it. The excitement to it. The build up. Everything about it that we love. Obviously we will all miss.”
Speaking of the memories, there’s some cold facts from 28 years ago for VanDerveer that are still soothing.
Like in the moments following Stanford’s 78-62 victory over Western Kentucky in the women’s NCAA title game in 1992. Juniors Val Whiting and Molly Goodenbour, the Final Four’s MVP after making an NCAA-record 18 3-pointers in five tournament games, had been the main reasons for Stanford’s title. But it really took the efforts of pretty much every player on the team.
It was that sense of unity that made VanDerveer happiest that night while standing in the team’s locker room at the Los Angeles Sports Arena soaking wet. Her players had doused her in ice-cold water, she still had the icy water dripping off of her, but VanDerveer’s heart remained as warm as ever.
“I’m really proud of how hard we worked and their unselfishness. This was a team in the truest sense of the word,” VanDerveer said that night. “People weren’t afraid to set high goals and dream big dreams.”
Also on this date …
2019: The Giants gave their three-time World Series champion manager Bruce Bochy an emotional tribute in his final Opening Day at Oracle Park. Bochy threw out the first pitch to Pablo Sandoval and Giants fans should have tuned out the rest of the day in San Francisco’s 5-2 loss to Tampa Bay at Oracle Park
1998: Ex-Giant Matt Williams had three hits and an RBI to help the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Giants 3-2 in Phoenix for their first win in team history. The victory ends the second-worst start ever (0-5) by an expansion team.
1992: Pleasanton’s Dana Dormann (Lofland), a three-time All-American golfer at San Jose State, won her first LPGA tournament by capturing the Las Vegas LPGA International title.
1971: The A’s lost 8-0 at RFK stadium in the Senators’ final home opener in Washington. Oakland’s Vida Blue, who went on to win Cy Young and AL MVP, had his worst start of the season. He gave up four runs in 1 2/3 innings.
Around the world of sports on this day…
1915: Jess Willard takes the heavyweight boxing title from Jack Johnson with a KO in the 26th round. (The fight was scheduled for 45 rounds.)
1919: Antwerp is named the host city for the 1920 Olympics, the first postwar Games.
1942: Former San Francisco Giants owner Peter Magowan is born in New York City. (d. 2019)
1967: Wilt Chamberlain sets NBA playoff record with 41 rebounds in a game against Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics.
1972: Opening Day for Major League Baseball is canceled because of a players’ strike for the first time in history.
1984: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar breaks Wilt Chamberlain’s all-time career scoring record of 31,419 points (31,421)
1993: The Florida Marlins and the Colorado Rockies play their first games in history.
1998: The Arizona Diamondbacks, after losing the first five games of their existence, beat the Giants for their first win.
2000: Lee Petty, a pioneer of NASCAR and the father of Richard Petty, dies at 86.
2005: The Washington Nationals take the field on Opening Day, the first team to represent the nation’s capital since the Senators in 1971.
2007: Darryl Stingley, paralyzed in a 1978 exhibition game against the Oakland Raiders, dies at 55 of heart disease and pneumonia complicated by quadriplegia.
2012: The Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians set an Opening Day record by playing 16 innings.
2013: Baltimore’s Chris Davis joins Willie Mays (1971), Mark McGwire (1988) and Nelson Cruz (2011) as players to homer in the first four games of a season.
Source: onthisdate.com
