Tara VanDerveer has seen the images of once-beautiful cities reduced to rubble. Of destruction in the Ukrainian capital she once visited, and throughout the country that women she once called her “cousins” call home.
It was “really, really, very hard” to watch Russian forces bombard Ukraine, VanDerveer, the Stanford women’s basketball coach, said. It was difficult to follow news of a war that has killed thousands. And so, sitting at home on Thursday, on the eve of a tournament she hoped to win, VanDerveer decided to act.
That afternoon, she issued a challenge.