Paye officially hired to succeed VanDerveer as head coach
Kate Paye will be Stanford’s women’s basketball head coach.
The Stanford athletic department on Tuesday announced that longtime associate head coach Paye will succeed Tara VanDerveer, who retired last week.
The decision was not surprising. Athletic director Bernard Muir said in the wake of VanDerveer’s departure that Paye was in negotiations to take over the program. Terms of the agreement were not released.
“Under Kate’s leadership now, I think we have a great, bright future. It’s going to be exciting times ahead,” Muir told the Chronicle last week, adding the plan had long been to have Paye take the job once VanDerveer left.
Paye, 50, was on VanDerveer’s staff for 17 seasons. She was named WBCA Assistant Coach of the Year this past season, becoming the first twotime Division I winner of the award after also claiming it in 2022.
A guard under VanDerveer who was a freshman on the 1992 national championship team, Paye had worked primarily with the guards and defense since joining the Cardinal coaching staff in 2007. This will be her first head-coaching opportunity.
Prior to returning to the Stanford bench, Paye was an assistant coach at San Diego State and played in the ABL and WNBA.
“I told Bernard it is really hard to imagine doing this from scratch in a new place that I didn’t know,” Paye said last week. “At least we have things in place where people are working, we know where to call, we’re checking on our players. You feel like there’s a lot of work to do, but at least you know what you can do, and you can just hit the ground running, roll up your sleeves and get to work.”
Paye will guide Stanford as it embarks on its first season in the ACC, which will happen without All-America honorable mention forward Kiki Iriafen, who entered the transfer portal last week.
The Cardinal are entering a new era in many respects, in a new conference, without VanDerveer, and now without their core of WNBAbound Cameron Brink, Hannah Jump and Iriafen.
“Stanford women’s basketball is a sisterhood and I’m grateful that Kate was hired to maintain that culture and lead the program forward,” VanDerveer said in a statement. “She has long been ready for this opportunity. I have loved working with Kate and appreciate her loyalty, work ethic, knowledge of the game and commitment to our student-athletes. I have complete confidence in her ability to lead Stanford women’s basketball in this new and challenging athletic landscape and know she will achieve great success as head coach.”