Fever hire Stephanie White as new head coach
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The Indiana Fever have hired Stephanie White at the team’s head coach, the team announced Friday.
The hiring returns White to Indianapolis, where she was the Fever’s head coach from 2015 to 2016, before she left to run Vanderbilt University’s women’s basketball program.
The Fever, which on Sunday fired second-year head coach Christie Sides after a 20-20 season—and the team’s first playoff appearance since 2016 as a No. 6 seed—was among a few teams interested in hiring White.
But the 2023 WNBA coach of the year became a free agent Monday, after she was fired by the Connecticut Sun following her second season as the team’s head coach. The Sun swept the Fever in the first round of this year’s playoffs, but lost in the semifinals in both of her seasons at the helm.
As a coach, she was an assistant at Ball State University and spent three seasons (2011-14) under Lin Dunn with the Fever, winning the WNBA title in 2012. She spent two years as head coach of the Fever, making the WNBA Finals in 2015 and qualifying for the playoffs in 2016.
White, 47, had a 55-25 regular season record with the Sun and was 7-7 in the playoffs. Her teams over five seasons at Vanderbilt went 46-83, with a high mark of 14-16 in her first and fourth years; the team’s 2020-2021 season was canceled partway through due to roster issues caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
As a player, White was 1995 Indiana Miss Basketball at Seeger High School in West Lebanon and led Purdue University to the 1999 NCAA championship under Coach Linn Dunn. She played five WNBA seasons, including four with the Fever.
White’s return to the Fever has been speculated about on social media for several weeks, but became more plausible after the Fever split from Sides. The Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday that White has been in talks with the Fever and the Chicago Sky about coaching.
The Fever is expected to return most of the team’s core players next season, led by Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark, back-to-back No. 1 picks in the 2023 and 2024 WNBA Drafts, respectively, and winners of the last two WNBA Rookie of the Year awards.
In early October, the Fever named veteran sports executive Amber Cox as the team’s new chief operating officer and general manager.
Cox, who spent the past two seasons as chief operating officer of the Dallas Wings, replaced Dunn, who moved into the role of senior adviser to the franchise.
The Fever haven’t had a head coach last for more than three years since Dunn, who coached from 2008-14. Since then, they’ve had White (2015-16), Pokey Chatman (2017-19) and Stanley (2020-22).