WNBA’s Fever names Stephanie White as new head coach

The Indiana Fever have hired Stephanie White as their new head coach, the team announced Friday.

White, who spent the past two seasons as head coach of the Connecticut Sun, takes over a franchise led by WNBA star Caitlin Clark.

“As we enter this new era of Fever basketball, I am excited to welcome Stephanie back to the franchise,” president of basketball operations Kelly Krauskopf said in a statement. “Stephanie is part of the fabric of this franchise, both as a former player and as a member of our championship coaching staff, so I am quite familiar with her elite basketball IQ and leadership style. I am confident there is no one who understands our culture better or is better equipped to lead our player group to the next level.”

Building on a promising young core in Clark and Aliyah Boston, the past two No. 1 draft picks, White will look to propel Indiana to the organization’s first championship since 2012.

White, an Indiana native and former star at Purdue, is intimately familiar with the Fever, having served on their coaching staff from 2011 to 2016, including as head coach for the final two years of that span. She was a member of the franchise’s first roster in 2000 and played for the team for four seasons.

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

White went 55-25 with consecutive semifinal appearances with the Sun and won WNBA Coach of the Year in 2023. Before returning to the WNBA, she coached five seasons at Vanderbilt and worked for many years as a basketball analyst.

She replaces Christie Sides, who led the Fever to a 20-20 record last season and their first playoff berth since 2016. The organization announced Sunday that she would be making the move for Sides, who was in just her second season at the helm ended. The Sun announced on Monday that White had left the team after two seasons.

White’s hiring is the latest big move for the Fever, who named Krauskopf as their new president in September and Amber Cox as their new COO and GM last month.

The arrival of Clark — the 2024 Rookie of the Year and an all-WNBA first-team roster — vaulted the Fever into another stratosphere of relevance: The franchise led the league this season with an average of more than 17,000 fans per game , and regularly attracted over a million viewers for games.

Aside from the league’s newest expansion team in Golden State, the WNBA is expected to have seven new head coaches at the helm for the 2025 season, which is a record according to the Elias Sports Bureau.