Indiana Fever bring back Stephanie White as coach, with championship aspirations in mind

It’s time to turn back the clock in Indiana.

After rehiring Kelly Krauskopf — who was the general manager of the Indiana Fever from 2000 to 2017 — in September to be the president of basketball operations, the Fever are getting the whole band back together with Stephanie White as the new (old) head coach. The team announced the move Friday.

“Stephanie is a part of the fabric of this franchise, both as a former player and as a member of our championship coaching staff, so I’m quite familiar with her elite basketball IQ and leadership style,” Krauskopf said in a statement. “I am confident there is no one who better understands our culture or is more equipped to lead our group of players to the next level.”

White was an assistant coach in Indiana from 2011 to 2014 and took over the head job in 2015-16 before moving to the NCAA to coach at Vanderbilt. She returned to the WNBA in 2023 with the Connecticut Sun and won Coach of the Year. However, she had reportedly been seeking new opportunities this offseason before parting ways with Connecticut this week, as the Sun face a free-agency overhaul and are perpetually hamstrung by the financial limitations of being owned by the Mohegan Tribe.

Now, she’s landed arguably the most exciting job in the league in Indiana.

we have named Stephanie White as our next head coach.

welcome home, @StephanieWhite!

📝 https://t.co/77Th6d6PoH pic.twitter.com/V3C5wSwKfN

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) November 1, 2024

She will coach the last two Rookie of the Year winners, Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston, both of whom were also All-Star starters in their debut seasons. After Boston posted one of the most prolific rookie seasons in recent memory, Clark upped the ante by finishing fourth in MVP voting and earning first-team All-WNBA honors.

“I am incredibly proud and honored to return home to Indiana and lead the Fever during such a pivotal moment in this franchise’s history, as well as during such an important time throughout women’s athletics,” White said in a statement. “This franchise has and always will be committed to winning and I look forward to working every day to help deliver another WNBA title to the greatest basketball fans in the world.”

Even with the youngest roster in the WNBA, the Fever showcased their high potential in 2024. After a 2-9 start featuring a brutal opening travel schedule, they had the best offense in the WNBA (107.7 points per 100 possessions) and finished with a .500 record to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

Merely making the postseason is no longer the goal, however, which is why White is replacing Christie Sides.

Sides was hired in a developmental role, one in which she has excelled. Boston, Clark, Kelsey Mitchell and Lexie Hull all took important steps forward under Sides, who was in her first head-coaching job.

Now, the aim is to compete for championships, and White has more experience in the deeper stages of the postseason. She was an assistant on the 2012 Fever who won the WNBA championship and led the them back to the finals as the coach in 2015. White also led Connecticut to the playoff semifinals in each of the last two seasons, and beat Indiana to get there this year.

White could have had a very comfortable coaching tenure with the Sun, who kept their previous coach, Curt Miller, for seven seasons. Instead, she’s stepping into the fire of a high-pressure situation with the most popular women’s basketball player in the world. There will be no grace afforded to her in this role, especially not after Indiana pushed out Sides to bring her in. She will be expected to win, and she must to stick around.

The Fever know what success looks like. Even in a new WNBA, they believe the old guard can get the job done.

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(Photo: Chris Marion / NBAE via Getty Images)