Hours after the Indiana Fever fired head coach Christie Sides on Sunday, the franchise reportedly already has its eyes on Sides’s successor.
Sides, who was hired in November 2022, led the Fever to a 20-20 record in 2024 and the team’s first playoff appearance since 2016. But on Sunday she was dismissed in a surprising move as the franchise looks to shake things up from the top down.
Stephanie White, currently under contract with the Connecticut Sun, is expected to take the helm in Indiana, according to Annie Costabile of the Chicago Sun-Times.
Nothing has been made official, but “multiple sources expect White to be the Fever’s next coach,” Costabile wrote.
White, 47, has a long history with the Fever franchise. She played for Indiana, her home-state team, for four seasons from 2000 to ‘04 and served as an assistant coach for the Fever from 2011 to ‘14 before being promoted to head coach in 2015. She led the Fever to the WNBA Finals that year, where the team lost to the Minnesota Lynx. White would coach the Fever for one more season in 2016, when the team lost in the first round of the WNBA playoffs.
The Fever were reportedly in talks with White even before Sides was fired, per Costabile, so seeing White become the top rumored candidate for the job doesn’t come as a huge surprise.
With the Fever coming off one of their best seasons in recent history, White will have big shoes to fill, as she will be in charge of helping star guard Caitlin Clark develop in the coming years, among other young players in Indiana.
