USA TODAY International Edition
Women’s coaches giving to Ukraine
Tara VanDerveer walked by the statue, a man riding triumphantly on a horse, and turned to her assistant Nell Fortner.
It was February 1996, and VanDerveer and Fortner were in Kyiv, Ukraine, with the Olympic women’s basketball team, playing in tournaments all over the country to prepare for the Summer Games in Atlanta. VanDerveer asked what the statue represented. Fortner shrugged, then told VanDerveer her interpretation was, “it’s the Ukrainian people saying, ‘ Party on!’ ”
Throughout their trip, VanDerveer remembered, the U. S. women partied and danced with the Ukrainian people, awed by their hospitality.
Fast- forward a month, and the team was outside its hotel at 3: 30 a. m. boarding a bus for the airport. As they walked out, they passed a group of destitute women, begging for anything the Americans could spare. The U. S. team, VanDerveer recalled, “emptied out their suitcases, their wallets,” giving away everything they had.
Generosity had been a theme that trip. Dawn Staley, the point guard on the ’ 96 team and now the coach at South Carolina, recalled that for that entire tour “any stops we made where we felt like we could help someone, we did.” Multiple times, Staley said, they gifted personal items to the Cuban national team.
Last week in Maples Pavilion, when VanDerveer, coach of defending national champion and No. 1 seed Stanford, met up again with Fortner, coach of ninth- seeded Georgia Tech, the former Olympic coaches looked at each other solemnly as VanDerveer remarked, “They’re not partying now.”
She was talking, of course, about war that’s broken out on the other side of the world. Since Feb. 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine and Ukrainians started fleeing their country in search of safety, media coverage has been awash in horrifying images, from sobbing children to crumbling cities to slain families killed by Russian bombs.
Ukrainians are ‘ suffering and it is front and center’
Typically in March, coaches and players in search of championships – like VanDerveer, who is on the hunt for her fourth NCAA title – tune out everything not related to basketball. But that’s impossible to do right now, said VanDerveer, and it should be.
“I don’t want to be celebrating something when other people are suffering,” she told USA TODAY
Sports. “I want to acknowledge that. I have so much, I am so fortunate, and other coaches are, too. These people right now, they’re suffering and it is front and center. They need help. They need an assist.”
So last week the Hall of Fame coach pledged to donate $ 10 for every made 3 in the women’s NCAA Tournament. Then she challenged other coaches, from both the men’s and women’s tournaments, to join her.
“Pony up,” she said after Stanford dispatched 16- seed Montana State 7837 in the first round.
In truth, this shouldn’t surprise us. For years, the women involved in women’s sports have led on and off the floor, from the WNBA standing up to hateful politicians to the U. S. women’s soccer team fighting for pay equity. Even in the women’s NCAA Tournament, VanDerveer isn’t the only one bringing attention to other causes. UConn star Paige Bueckers had promised to donate 10,000 dimes, which translates to $ 1,000, for every “dime” she drops in March Madness, promising the money to Youthprise, a Minnesota organization that works with Indigenous, low- income and racially diverse youth. ( So far, Bueckers has handed out seven assists.)
When asked if she’d be joining VanDerveer’s challenge, Staley said she’d be happy to – but she wants to make sure everyone remembers issues in our own backyards, too. She proposed coaches donate $ 1 for every tournament rebound and put the funds toward inner city youth. ( In 2013 Staley co- founded InnerSole, a nonprofit that gifts new sneakers to homeless youth.) VanDerveer has also recruited and received verbal commitments from her sister, Heide, Fortner, Utah’s Lynne Roberts and Montana State’s Tricia Binford, among others.
But uh, guys, where you at? Men’s coaches, in case the obvious needs to be stated, typically make considerably more money than their women’s counterparts. An average of four times as much, in fact, a gap that was highlighted recently in a USA TODAY Sports salary survey.
Bruce Pearl, Randy Bennett pledge their support
Thus far, only two men’s coaches have expressed enthusiasm about the challenge. Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, who knows VanDerveer from his days as an assistant at Stanford in the mid-’ 80s, declared he was “all- in.” When asked by a reporter if he’d be joining the challenge, Saint Mary’s Randy Bennett said, “Have Tara call me” – then walked up to the reporter and shared his cellphone number, with the understanding it would be passed on to VanDerveer.
Other men’s coaches have said they support her cause and have alluded to “making a donation,” including Penny Hardaway from Memphis and Tommy Lloyd from Arizona. UCLA’s Mick Cronin quipped, “Tell Tara to send me a bill.”
But I want to see the receipts. I want every NCAA Tournament coach, many of whom make at least 23 times the median income in America, to pledge a donation and post a copy of their receipt on social media, as VanDerveer plans to do.
And it doesn’t stop at coaches. VanDerveer said everyone – administrators, fans, student- athletes cashing big NIL checks – can contribute, whether it’s “a nickel a 3, a dime a 3, $ 10 or $ 100.” In a dire situation, she pointed out, every little bit helps.
“We’re all capable of something,” she said. “Think about, what could we do as a basketball community? Could we hit $ 100,000? That seems like a layup. What about $ 1 million?”
Sports, VanDerveer knows, provide her a platform unlike many others. For her, giving back isn’t new, though she often does it quietly. In 2018, VanDerveer teamed with Billie Jean King and the Women’s Sports Foundation to start the Tara VanDerveer Fund, which provides fellowship money for aspiring female coaches in all collegiate sports. In December 2020, after becoming the all- time winningest coach in women’s college basketball with 1,099 wins, she pledged $ 10 for every win to local food banks in desperate need of help because of COVID- 19.
She wasn’t trying to draw a lot of attention to either of those causes. But this is different, and more personal to her. The scene outside the bus has been imprinted on her mind and heart for 26 years, and was the first thing she recalled when Russia began its unprovoked invasion.
VanDerveer remembers Kyiv as “such a beautiful city.” She found herself humbled by the way the Ukrainians “always gave us their best – their best food, their best effort on the court, all of it.” The Americans played the Ukrainians so many times that month, they started referring to each other as sisters and cousins.
Made 3s in the women’s tournament are being tallied by Her Hoop Stats, a website that tracks advanced analytics. Every night, Stanford sports information director Wilder Treadway updates VanDerveer on how much she owes. After the first two rounds, she’s on the hook for $ 6,290. She’s decided to split her donations among three charities: Save the Children, Americares and Global Giving. ( Her Hoop Stats has offered to compile any stat coaches want to claim as their own, like assists, blocks, etc.)
But why stop after this year or with this cause?
Cronin had a terrific suggestion: The NCAA should take $ 1 from every ticket sold for first round men’s and women’s games and donate that money to one or two causes each March; coaches associations could pick the charities. This year alone, the NCAA sold just under 500,000 first- round tickets. Think about how much that could help.
But good ideas, as Cronin certainly knows from all the plays he’s drawn up in huddles, don’t mean anything without good execution. It’s time for the true winners to step up.
The women’s coaches and players are already coming through in crunchtime. Can the gentlemen of the men’s tournament do the same?