Kelly Krauskopf wants to be “bold and assertive” in hopes of getting the Indiana Fever its next championship.
She has the potential to do just that by hiring Stephanie White, luring her away from the Connecticut Sun — where she was the WNBA Coach of the Year in 2023. The Chicago Sun-Times’ Annie Costabile reported Sunday multiple sources within the league expect White to become the next Fever coach, despite a year left on her contract with the Sun.
The Fever parted ways with Christie Sides on Sunday morning, ending her four-year contract two years in.
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White could be a perfect fit for Indiana, especially with better facilities, a surging team and the prospect of coaching Caitlin Clark — already one of the best players in the league. White has ample experience in the playoffs, winning a championship with the Fever as an assistant in 2012 and leading the Sun to the WNBA playoff semifinals both seasons she was their head coach.
She has a close history with Krauskopf and Lin Dunn, who is still with the organization as a senior advisor to Fever basketball after a two-year run as the Fever’s GM from 2022-24.
White started her WNBA coaching career as an assistant with the Chicago Sky from 2007-10, then moved to become an assistant coach for Indiana from 2011-14 under Dunn.
Krauskopf, who was the Fever’s president from 2000-18, gave White her first WNBA head coach gig with the Fever in 2015 after Dunn retired from coaching, and she led Indiana to the WNBA Finals in her first season. She only spent two seasons as the Fever’s head coach, though, leaving after the 2016 season for the college ranks at Vanderbilt.
Krauskopf returned to the Fever following the 2024 season after six years as an assistant general manager for the Pacers. White praised Krauskopf’s return in a media availability during the first round of the WNBA Playoffs between the Fever and the Sun.
“Kelly is certainly the architect of everything that’s gone on in the Indiana Fever franchise from day one,” White said of Krauskopf on Sept. 24. “For her to come back, it says how serious the organization is to taking the next step, and I think it shows Kelly’s love for the W, right, love and commitment to the W and to the Indiana Fever franchise. Certainly, there’s no one better to usher the Fever into this new era than Kelly.”
White has familial ties to Indiana, too. She is from West Lebanon and was Miss Basketball out of Seeger High School. She was a leader of the Purdue team that won the NCAA championship in 1999, winning Big Ten Player of the Year and the Wade Trophy winner that season. She played for the now-defunct Charlotte Sting to start her WNBA career, and then played four seasons with Indiana before retiring from playing in 2004.
Sides was a first-time head coach, essentially learning on the job. She went 13-27 in her first season at Indiana, then 20-20 with a playoff berth in what became her second and final year. She led the Fever to the playoffs for the first time since 2016, and ultimately brought stability to a franchise that had become the laughingstock of the league for years on end.
Krauskopf praised Sides’ stability in her introductory news conference earlier this month, saying it was “hard not to be impressed” by her progress.
“It takes time,” Krauskopf said on Oct. 8. “It took a long time for for teams that I’ve had to jell and to get together, I mean, years. It doesn’t happen in four months. It takes a few years. I was really impressed with the progress that they made and how Christie is a resilient leader. You know, she’s a culture-builder. I know just that she’s got that kind of, you know, stamina to stick to it and stick to her plan, and she’s a good person, and she’s a great leader. I was impressed with the way they finished.”
But with Sides’ relative inexperience in the playoffs, the team felt she wasn’t the coach that could take the Fever to the next level. Two of Indiana’s ‘Big Three’ — Aliyah Boston and Clark — are on rookie contracts, making it relatively inexpensive to keep them along with Kelsey Mitchell, who will command a max contract assuming she re-signs in free agency. But when Boston’s rookie contract is up in two years (Clark in three), keeping that core together will become much more expensive — and those players could elect to go somewhere else.
Still, the timing of Sides’ firing is odd, coming a month after the Fever season ended and a week after the WNBA champions were crowned. It’s a firing that would likely only happen if the Fever front office had a solid plan in place for her successor — someone they couldn’t pass up if given the opportunity.
“While decisions like these are never easy, it is also imperative that we remain bold and assertive in the pursuit of our goals, which includes maximizing our talent and bringing another WNBA championship back to Indiana,” Krauskopf said in a statement announcing Sides’ firing on Sunday.
The Fever are trying to swing big, and White could be as close to a home run as you could get.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why Indiana Fever hiring Stephanie White as new coach makes sense
