Tara VanDerveer family: Looking at Stanford WBB head coach's family tree background  

Longterm Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer recently broke the record for most wins by an NCAA coach when the Cardinal beat the Oregon State Beavers 65-56 for win No. 1203 passing the legendary former Duke men's coach, Mike Krzyzewski.

VanDerveer has been a coach for 46 years now and is breaking records galore, but where did it all start for the Stanford coach?

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Tara VanDerveer's family background

Tara VanDerveer was born in Massachusetts in 1953 to Rita and Dunbar VanDerveer but grew up in New York in a family with four siblings, Beth, Marie, Nick and Heidi.

Heidi is the most well-known having been the coach of the WNBA team, the Minnesota Lynx and is now the coach of UC San Diego. Tara VanDerveer's parents met at Springfield College, Massachusetts, and settled in the area where, Rita, the Stanford coach's mother was raised.

VanDeveer revealed what her father told her when she decided to take the Stanford job in 1985, as the Cardinal was a losing program before she turned its fortunes around.

VanDerveer said, “My dad honestly told me (in 1985), ‘You’re crazy. You’ll be home in three months, because you can’t win at Stanford.’ I said, ‘Dad, we just have to get three or four of the best players from around the country.’ And we were able to do that.”

Tara VanDerveer has largely kept her relationship status and family life private over the years. But she is unmarried and recently revealed that she plays bridge online with her mother every day.

She purchased the family's holiday home in Chautauqua, New York, after her mother had to sell it after her father died. Her sister, Beth manages the property as a bed and breakfast.

"When I'm here, I won't leave the grounds," VanDerveer revealed in an interview with Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame.

"It's sort of a family joke. My mother will want to go into town for dinner, but I refuse. It was the same when I was a kid. Our car would pull up to the house at the beginning of the season, and my father would look up and say 'Where's Tara?' I was already gone to find my friends. There's so much to do here and never enough time."

Tara VanDerveer has won several accolades over the years, including the Naismith National Coach of the Year in 1990 and the Pac-12 Coach of the Year Award 10 times. She was also inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, proving her dad's words wrong.