Fever coach Stephanie White fires back at online criticism: ‘Everybody else can go to hell’
· Yahoo Sports
INDIANAPOLIS — About two hours before Stephanie White appeared for her regular pregame media availability on Tuesday, graphite-colored storm clouds rolled over Gainbridge Fieldhouse and the city skyline. The Indiana Fever coach later produced more thunder than any of them.
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Railing against calls for her firing and an “online community that’s trying to create narratives that simply don’t exist,” White made an impassioned two-minute statement defending her relationship with the Fever players, occasionally pounding the table and leaving the dais without taking questions.
“The hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that’s trying to hijack our league will not win,” White said, banging her fist to underscore the last three words. “It won’t win. We are united. We are connected. We will not be divided. Every day these women put their ass on the line. Every day. When they go low, we go high. Love will win. Grace will win. Humility will win. And kindness will win.
“I stand by them, I will always stand by them. Everybody else can go to hell.”
White’s comments appear to be yet another byproduct of the increasingly infamous flagrant foul committed by the Chicago Sky’s DiJonai Carrington on Saturday, in which Carrington effectively clotheslined the Fever’s Sophie Cunningham on a first-quarter layup attempt, earning an ejection.
In the immediate aftermath of the Fever’s 90-86 win, White — who previously coached Carrington with the Connecticut Sun — said she didn’t believe Carrington “intentionally came out to get (Cunningham) across the neck.” She added that the Sky guard is “going to play her butt off, man” and that easy layups shouldn’t be expected with Carrington on the floor.
Backlash ensued swiftly. Indiana lieutenant governor Micah Beckwith posted on X that White should be fired because “no solid coach would ever take the side of the opposing team’s player who committed a flagrant foul on one of your own players.”
Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy also chimed in on Monday, saying Carrington “assaulted” Cunningham and insinuating White was too timid in response.
“Get her out of there,” Portnoy said. “Fire her ass today. Stop defending the other players.”
The breaking point arrived around 6:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, when a visibly emotional White sat down for pregame remarks ahead of the Fever’s game against the New York Liberty.
“You know, this isn’t necessarily for the people in this room,” White began. “This is more for an online community that’s trying to create narratives that simply don’t exist. Trying to create a fabrication or distortion of who I am, of what I’m about.
“Our players’ success, our players’ health and wellness, our players’ safety is always a top priority for me. One of the things I pride myself on is my relationships with players.”
Of the Carrington foul, White said she “didn’t see the play in real time” and didn’t have the benefit of replays before arriving for her postgame remarks. “Was it egregious? Absolutely,” she said. “When you have a chance to watch that, over and over on replay, you can see that.”
From there, White went on the counterattack.
“I take personally any suggestions that I don’t 100 percent always have my players’ back,” White said. “I ride with them 10 toes down all the time. All the time. They know that. It’s a shame that we can’t have an opportunity to talk about what great basketball they’re playing. Because they are f—–g playing.”
Indeed, the Fever entered Tuesday’s game against the Liberty with six wins in their last eight games, rounding into form as a potential championship contender. But the on-floor success has often been subsumed by controversies.
First came an uproar over the Fever potentially skirting WNBA injury report rules as star guard Caitlin Clark worked her way through a back injury early in the season. Then Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas put her hand to Clark’s throat during a June 24 game without incurring a foul in real time; the WNBA reviewed the play and retroactively issued a flagrant 2 foul and suspended Thomas for a game, while Thomas reported receiving online harassment and death threats over the play.
Cunningham has been a lightning rod herself, due to comments she made in an ESPN story published in July in which she said she did not support transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. White, Clark and others with the Fever have been asked to respond to Cunningham’s beliefs since, and other voices in the league have weighed in as well.
Within a half hour of White’s comments Tuesday evening, Fever team president Kelly Krauskopf issued a statement of support for her head coach.
“Coach White has done a tremendous job leading the Fever, and for the second consecutive season has us in great position for a playoff push,” Krauskopf said. “She has kept our team focused and united, all while under the brightest spotlight our team and our league have ever experienced. She has full support of leadership.”
In a bitter coincidence, it was only a day earlier that White stood on the Fever’s practice court and eloquently spoke about how her team has handled the non-basketball discourse that has piled up during the season. There were a lot of people trying to divide the team, she said then, noting that the Fever had done a good job keeping those vibes outside the locker room.
“Nothing that any one of us ever does is going to please everyone, all the time,” White said at Monday’s practice. “I hope that the biggest thing we learn is how to be responsive instead of reactive, in certain situations. It’s really easy, especially for young people, or those who aren’t in it every day, to react to everything that happens. It’s also dangerous to react to everything that happens.”
But sometimes, the clouds roll in hard, and there’s no avoiding some thunder.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Indiana Fever, WNBA
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