1,203.
That was the magic number.
It was the number of wins it took to become the winningest college basketball coach of all time for men and women and on Sunday Jan. 21, Stanford Women's Basketball Head Coach Tara Vanderveer hit that mark with a 65-56 win over Oregon State.
For players like Annika Shah who grew up in Palo Alto and Sydney Borland out of San Jose, Vanderveer’s Stanford teams were a pillar of their upbringing.
“I grew up going to any game that I could because I just loved basketball since I was super young," Shah explained who's high school was less than a mile from the home of the Cardinal, Maples Pavillion. "Being such a dominant coach and a dominant program was super inspirin and it's something that made me want to be a part of a great program like that too.”
Bourland went to powerhouse Archbishop Mitty in San Jose where Vanderveer was in attendance for her practices and games. She also attended Stanford basketball camps as a kid.
“You grow up going to the games, going to camp, stuff like that, and then seeing her and having her in the same room as me, watching me play, was really cool.”
Vanderveer's record is more than just a number. It also represents her mark on the coaching profession that has affected people like Mustangs Head Coach Shanele Stires who saw up close Coach Vanderveer’s influence in her time on the staff at the University of San Francisco from 2012-2016.
“She's somebody who has really laid the foundation of promoting women's basketball in such a way from her Olympic team experience to bringing a higher level of basketball to the West Coast.”
The last three seasons the Mustangs have traveled to Maples Pavilion and played the Cardinal; experiences that made them better as players and coaches.
“I'm so humbled by the opportunity to lead a program like this at Cal Poly," Stires said. "But when you have the opportunity to compete against the all time greats, it's really humbling and it's something that you don't take for granted.”
“I think it was just really great for our team because they just made us grow," Bourland added. "I think just you can tell their culture is really off the charts down there.”
The match-ups against one of the top teams in the country year in and year out including this preseason, also gave them a taste of what they could see in the NCAA Tournament should they win the Big West Conference.
“If you win the Big West, you're probably going to play an opponent like that in the first round," Stires explained. "Having those preseason games allows you to reference back to that.”
The win helped put her past the Former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and with the already exponential rise in popularity in women’s basketball, the magnitude of 1,203 only helps make the game reach more and more people.
“It just shows how women's basketball is on the rise and a lot of people are starting to pay a lot more attention to it," Shah stated. "It's great that not only women are just celebrating women, but other people, too, are celebrating women.”
While the Cardinal and Coach Vanderveer are likely on their way to a 35th trip to the NCAA championship Tournament, the Cal Poly women are trying to get back there for the first time since the 2012-2013 season under then head coach Faith Mimnaugh.
