The Indiana Fever is in a rebuild mode. After firing Christie Sides and welcoming Stephanie White, the franchise is all set to build a formidable team around Caitlin Clark. While the point guard was touted as the mainstay player, the Fever’s performances hit their peak last season only after the Olympics break when Clark was given complete freedom. And when White was confirmed as the new head coach, no one looked as excited as the reigning ROTY. But Fox analysts uncovered something that might put an end to Clark’s happiness.
On Saturday’s episode of The Outkick, Chad Withrow shed light on the less spoken phase of White raising eyebrows on the Fever’s latest appointment. “Stephanie White first off at Vanderbilt was 46 and 83 overall. She was 14 and 58 in the SEC. I mean that’s difficult… That’s difficult. I’m choking over here like Aaron Judge. Very difficult to accomplish that level of futility, right? Yes, anywhere she was awful at Vanderbilt but Hutton 2020-2021 season with all the COVID restrictions and everything else, she just discontinued a season in January.,” Withrow stated.
After helping the Indiana Fever reach the WNBA playoffs in 2016 as an assistant coach, White took on the task of coaching the NCAA team Vanderbilt Commodores. During her time with the Commodores, the Illinois-born had a 46-83 record with 13-54 in the conference. She was suddenly fired from her position in 2021, which didn’t allow her to complete her 6-year contract, most probably because she never had a winning season.
And I totally forgot about that. I just searched Stephanie White controversy and the first thing that popped up was the Vanderbilt players got together and voted to not play anymore after losing by 52 points to South Carolina that year. And they just all right guys… ‘Our safety is in doubt.’ They did have a player who had myocarditis from COVID-19 that was out. They had two players sick, that was quarantined at different times. They had other legitimate injuries on the team … So they were down to seven of their 14 scholarship players that were on the team and they just decided all right that’s… we’ll call it a season. They tapped out like good news for Vanderbilt,” Withrow added.
One of the lowest points in the season came when the Commodores lost to the fifth-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks by a 106-43 margin and that too at Memorial Gymnasium, Nashville. Post that, the team played just one more game against Kentucky in that season and then it was canceled. To top that, there were fewer options on the roster due to COVID-19, opt-outs, and injuries.
Notably, three of the starters – Koi Love, Chelsie Hall, and Autumn Newby – shared their decision to transfer. And this wasn’t the first time that it was happening. Instead, nine former or projected starters opted out of the Vanderbilt program in five years. To try to minimize their losses and attract more players, the program announced a basketball operations center. And since the Commodores lacked in having popular stars, their ticket sales too declined.
“No one asked for a refund for season tickets because no one had any. Because this point of Stephanie White’s tenure no one went to Vanderbilt but women’s basketball games, and I don’t know that anybody paid to go to one of those games. I think it was all like you know give the young girls basketball team of tickets to go watch college basketball field day. Yeah it was real bad,” withrow concluded enumerating that White recovered once she became the HC at the Connecticut Sun. However, this is an unforgettable chapter in an otherwise credible career, and hence there are chances that Clark might have to go back on her words after some time.
Caitlin Clark looked excited to welcome Stephanie White
Sides had taken the Indiana Fever to the WNBA playoffs for the first since White switched to the Connecticut Sun. However, this wasn’t enough for the Fever management who expressed that their goal was “maximizing our talent and bringing another WNBA championship back to Indiana.” Therefore, Sides was fired, and White was brought back as the HC after the 2016 season. Plus, White is a native of Indiana who played for the Fever from 2000-2004 and was an assistant to Lin Dunn (the current Indiana Senior Advisor) from 2011- 2014.
When the Fever broke the news, Clark shared the post on her Instagram story and commented “Fevvvvv shooowwwwwww.” As per reports, Clark and White share a special bond since the 47-year-old has always supported the former NCAA Queen whenever she found it difficult to have a stable footing in the W. Especially after Clark wasn’t able to perform well during the initial games, White had come to her defense, opining “She is going to be fine. It’s two games in, are you kidding me?”
In fact, Stephanie White was the first person Caitlin Clark reached out to as she entered the preseason matchups with the Connecticut Sun. But if White fails to deliver the standards she maintained at the Sun, then surely Clark will regret her excessive enthusiasm. And after she finds White’s coaching record at Vanderbilt, the Des Moines-born would hope that history doesn’t repeat itself.
