INDIANAPOLIS — For Stephanie White, Indiana is home.
She grew up just 1.5 hours outside of Indianapolis, won Miss Basketball, starred at Purdue, played for the Fever and helped the franchise win its only WNBA championship as an assistant coach in 2012. Even after she quit as Fever head coach in favor of Vanderbilt in 2016, Indiana (and the Fever franchise) was never far from her heart.
“This is just a really, really special place, special franchise,” White said. “It’s been a part of my DNA from day one, and will always continue to be a part of my DNA. And … (Fever announcer Pat Boylan) would ask me, every time I come back, ‘What’s it feel like, you know, when you come back in this building?’ And every time I said, ‘It feels like home.’”
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White spent six years at Vanderbilt before she was let go in 2021. She got back into the WNBA in 2023 with the Connecticut Sun, winning league coach of the year in her first season and bringing Connecticut to the WNBA semifinals each of the two years she coached there.
Being out in Connecticut, though, was difficult for White’s immediate family, which includes her partner, ESPN sideline host Lisa Salters, and their four growing boys as part of their blended family.
They’re based in Nashville, which has no direct flights to Hartford — the closest airport to the Sun’s home arena. Even after landing, it’s an hour-long drive to Uncasville.
“You know, being out in Connecticut every year, I would sit down with my kids and my family, even before I took the job, when I was interviewing for other jobs, and just say, ’Hey, are we on board with this?’” White said. “Each fall, it has been really difficult, because I did not see my children a lot from the time they go back to school in August until I get home in October.”
It’s something White knew wasn’t sustainable for her, Salters or their kids. Their time as a family is already limited because of their respective demanding work schedules — White also works as an analyst for ESPN in the WNBA offseason — and being in Connecticut was making their time together even shorter. White’s kids attend school in Nashville, making it difficult for her to see them for up to three months at a time (depending on how long the Sun went in the playoffs).
It was also a situation where she, or her kids, were barely seeing her sister, nephew, mother, or other family members at all.
White still technically had a year left on her contract with the Sun, running through the 2025 season. She could’ve just waited the contract out — after all, it’s just one more season. But it was one more season she wouldn’t be able to see her kids, who are already growing fast: one is 13, and three are 11. There’s only so much time before they leave for college and create lives of their own.
“For those of us who have children, you know, you don’t get these years back, right?” White said at her introductory news conference Monday. “You don’t get this time back. And my family sacrificed a lot of time with my children, and for them to now be able to have them around more often, for me to be closer to home, it was really important. There’s always a time in your life where you feel like everything needs to be grounded, everything needs to be centered, so that you can be where your feet are.”
So, when White was considering leaving Connecticut, she had a conversation with her agent on what was most important to her.
First was a good situation professionally: It needed to be a franchise with the means to support her and the players, in a position to be able to compete for a championship and have success.
Secondly, it needed to be closer to her family.
“It can’t be one or the other, right?” White said. “It can’t just be close to home and not have a good infrastructure, you know, not be a good situation professionally. And it can’t just be a good situation professionally and then not be a good situation for my family.”
Indiana was the perfect fit. She’s close to her hometown of West Lebanon, Ind., and a four-hour drive down I-65 from Nashville.
The Fever have a young and talented roster with players like Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston and Lexie Hull, they have the facilities and ownership that supports the WNBA in an equal manner, and they have championship aspirations.
Aspirations that became more realistic with White at the helm.
“I think our window has been accelerated,” Fever president Kelly Krauskopf said. “I don’t like to put timelines on championships, but I know that we have a pretty good start.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Stephanie White prioritized family in return as Indiana Fever coach
