How to win more games than anyone else

Sometime in the next few weeks, when she wins her 1,203rd game, Tara VanDerveer at Stanford will pass Mike Krzyzewski at Duke as the college basketball coach — male or female — with the most wins of all time.

It took Krzyzewski, known as Coach K, 47 seasons to reach that milestone. T Dawg, as VanDerveer is affectionately known on campus, will be there in 45, 38 of which will be at Stanford. She'll also do it with a higher winning percentage: about 82 percent of her games versus Krzyzewski's 77 percent. She has won three NCAA championships, even though many of the nation's top women's basketball athletes can't play for her because they don't meet Stanford's academic standards.

Most CEOs are fortunate enough to have a decade of top positions in their positions. How can a leader be so successful for nearly half a century, with a record of wins at Stanford for every season after her freshman season in 1985?

Then there's the fact that NCAA sports have changed rapidly in recent years. Now collectives of major donors at competing schools are paying large sums to attract and retain athletes, not just in football but in other sports, including women's basketball. (VanDerveer's own players have turned down substantial offers.) And colleges may soon be allowed to pay athletes directly. But Stanford's donors, wealthy as they are, have so far not made as much progress as those of other schools.

At 70, VanDerveer is a decade or two older than many of her most successful competitors. She is old enough to be a grandmother to her players. But through generations of cultural changes and a transformation of college athletics, she has found ways to adapt. There may be lessons in her success for other Boomers who find themselves in a workplace full of younger colleagues.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

When you took this coaching job 40 years ago, your father said you were crazy because you couldn't win at basketball at Stanford. Were you crazy?

In 1985, I had a great coaching job at Ohio State (28-3 the previous season, while Stanford was 9-19). We had just beaten Stanford by 32 points. But one player we recruited, Emily Wagner, chose Stanford over Ohio State because if she got injured or things weren't going well on the court, Stanford was where she would be happy. Emily was probably the reason I got hired because she told the athletic director she wanted to play for me.

I said no the first time, then came back and met with Stanford track coach Brooks Johnson. Brooks, who is black, said that the Stanford team was almost all white and that he could help me recruit a great diverse team. He was brilliant.

As for my dad, I told him, 'We just need to get three or four of the best players from around the country.' And we did that.

Your own rules for leading a winning team?

Rent right away. As my father said, “You can't win the Kentucky Derby on a mule.” And not just players, but also staff. Make sure they complement you more than compliment you.

Have a vision for your players and give them the tools. Maximize people's strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

Don't be the center of attention. Don't micromanage and look for input.

Outsmart the players on your team. Take care of yourself – eat and sleep well, and exercise – so you can take care of each other. If you can't swim, you can't save the other swimmer and you'll both die.

You can't have 15 personalities, one for each player. But you can recognize everyone's differences, get to know them and understand where they are.

All behavior is communication – not just words, but also eye contact and body language.

Know that if your senior leaders are dissatisfied, your entire team will be too.

Learn the art of the controlled meltdown.

The controlled meltdown. Can you explain that in more detail?

I try to be even and not get too high or too low. I'm intense, but I'm not a shouter who gets technical fouls. I want to be a good example for my players by showing self-control. Only once did I go completely crazy – about 35 years ago. We were about to play the No. 1 team, Purdue. We had lost a few games and I had implemented a routine during our warm-up, with more ball handling. They didn't do it with any enthusiasm. I went ballistic. Before the game in the locker room, each player got a piece of my thoughts. Yes, we beat them. It was the only game Purdue lost in a 34-1 national championship season. But I didn't have a good feeling about it. These were college women and I wanted to treat them like adults. It wasn't who I wanted to be.

Are there any other secrets behind your success as a leader?

I love what I do. And I have great people around me: assistant coaches who complement me with different strengths. My assistant head coach, Kate Paye, is incredibly organized. I'm more of a pie in the sky. My assistants are better at technical things, like editing game video. They are thorough scouts. And sometimes players need to talk to someone besides the head coach – and they are attentive listeners.

I'm also not afraid to take risks and experiment. We have been running one type of offense with great success for at least twelve years. When our team personnel changed, I studied the 'Princeton offense' and thought it was a better fit for our team. We won the NCAA in 2021 with that offense.

Moreover, I learn all my life – from professors, assistants, players. I watch other Stanford teams practice and ask coaches about their training methods. And I watch so much basketball. I'm a copy machine who gets ideas from other basketball coaches.

My parents in upstate New York were the people I learned the most about leadership from. They were teachers and we didn't have a lot of money, but we did incredible things.

They emphasized the general interest. We were five children. They all supported us in different ways. I was sent to a private school. My sister got a car. They didn't keep score. They just understood what each child needed. That's how I am and try to understand what each player needs, and the needs are different.

You have cited your piano teacher as a source of inspiration. Why?

She took me to places I couldn't go on my own. That's what a good coach does.

Twenty-five years ago, at Christmas, when I was in my mid-forties, I decided to learn to play the piano. My sister Heidi (the head women's coach at UC San Diego) bought me a keyboard. After two weeks I thought: I can't do this, so I found a teacher, Jodi Gandolfi. So now I'm suddenly a student. I wasn't used to being a student. You make yourself vulnerable. You have to play at a recital, and I would bomb like the kid who misses the free throw at the end of the game. So it helped me to interact better with our players.

Within a year I was much better and when people were surprised I kept saying, 'It's not me, it's Jodi!' It wasn't just because she was so technically good, it was also that you wanted to please her. When I didn't have time to practice, she would say, “Don't worry, this time we can play duets.” She really understood me.

And I've learned that if you want to get better, don't be afraid to ask for help.

What advice would you give to your fellow boomers as they struggle to stay relevant in a younger workplace?

Most importantly, we can show our younger colleagues that, like my piano teacher, we can take them to a place they cannot reach on their own.

Be yourself, but don't fight change. Young people are the only ones who grew up with technology – they live on their phones – and with a pandemic. Understand where they come from.

How is your job different now that your competitors' fans are forming collectives to pay their players hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) and pursuing stars like your all-American Cameron? Edge. And what does it mean if universities start paying athletes directly?

Now I have to work harder to convince families that the return on investment of a Stanford education will be greater than NIL or collective money. But the new Stanford collective is very important to the success of our team. And if universities can pay athletes directly, that will ensure that the women do as well as the men, because of Title IX. We've worked so hard for equality. I've fought for that all my life.

We are inspired by those who play (and work) for us. Tell us about some players who have inspired you.

Angela Taylor was part of the national title-winning team with two all-American guards, so she almost never got to play. I asked her about her role. She said, 'to spread the sunshine.'

Jennifer Azzi was on my national team and was boarding the bus at 2:30 a.m. on a freezing night in Ukraine when we passed a group of wrestling women in light jackets. She walked off the bus and opened her wallet and suitcase for them. Her teammates followed her.

Jayne Appel played her last game at Stanford with a broken foot and wouldn't take off her uniform after the game – she loved playing so much.

Jamila Wideman told her teammates to pick their heads up after we were upset by Old Dominion in the semifinals and they were on the ground crying. I couldn't get their attention, but Jamila stood them up with, “I'd rather lose with you than with anyone else.”