Waldorf University’s Tina Lair-VanMeter had a decision to make following her senior year for the Warriors women’s basketball team. Come back for a 5th year due to COVID-19 or hang the shoes up. Fortunately for Waldorf, she decided to come back for one more go.
On January 8th, in Waldorf’s loss at Presentation, Lair-VanMeter achieved that goal, grabbing her 1000th career rebound.
A little over half of those rebounds have come while wearing purple for Waldorf, the others for Southwestern Community College, where she started her career. A career that almost ended before it got started. Lair-VanMeter was unhappy with the way her freshman season for the Spartans went, and the school was going through a coaching change. Lair-VanMeter said that ‘coach Austin’ (Byran Austin) helped her get back onto the court and have a successful career at Southwestern and Waldorf.
Tina continues to shine for the Warriors, including when Waldorf nearly beat Valley City State at home this past weekend. Lair-VanMeter had 19 points in the second half to help bring her team back and force overtime. She scored a game-high 27 points and collected 13 more rebounds for another double-double. She currently sits fourth in the North Star Athletic Association in scoring (16.1 points per game), she is the conferences’ top rebounder with 10 per game, and she is number two in field goal percentage shooting 54.1 percent from the floor.
She’s the second Warrior to record 1k points and rebounds, joining Rachel Hannam, who played for Waldorf from 2006-10. She scored 1,204 points which are second all-time at Waldorf, and grabbed 1002 rebounds.
Lair-VanMeter also mentioned that she is trying to use this year to help the younger players grow. Waldorf gets significant minutes from two freshmen and seven total underclassmen. Tina’s main point of emphasis to them? Just what coach Austin used to help her – confidence.
