Caitlin Clark had just one head coach at Iowa—the highly respected Lisa Bluder. Weeks after Clark’s first season in the WNBA with the Indiana Fever, she already has her second head coach as a pro. 

The Fever hired Stephanie White on Friday, who returns as head coach nearly a decade after a six-year stint with the team, which included four years as an assistant and two years as head coach. 

White served as an assistant coach under Lin Dunn, now a Fever senior advisor, during the team’s only championship run in 2012. She led the franchise back to the Finals in 2015 as a head coach. She also played for the team from 2000 to 2004, though she missed the 2002 season due to injury.

She spent the last two years as the coach of the Connecticut Sun, the team that eliminated the Fever in the 2024 playoffs, but the two sides parted ways Monday. White had a year remaining on her contract.

Sun president Jen Rizzotti told ESPN the two sides parted on “good terms” and White, a native of Indiana, departed for reasons beyond basketball.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday, following the Fever firing of head coach Christie Sides, that White had narrowed her search to the Fever and Chicago Sky. White, an Indiana native, started her WNBA coaching career with the Sky. 

White inherits a Fever roster that finished 20–20 last season and qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2016, her last season as head coach. The role comes with a national spotlight given the presence of Caitlin Clark, the league’s biggest draw, and lofty expectations due to the early success of Clark and 2023 No. 1 pick Aliyah Boston.

Following Clark’s WNBA debut in May against the Sun, Clark spoke glowingly of White, who worked as a basketball analyst for ESPN and the Big Ten Network and called many of the star guard’s games at Iowa.

“I just think she has a really great basketball mind. I think she’s done a great job calling college games. … She’s been a trailblazer, honestly. I think she’s always been somebody that’s been supportive of my game. It’s been fun to talk to her at shootarounds throughout my college career,” Clark said.

WNBA Coaching Carousel

White’s signing closes the door on one of seven coaching vacancies across the WNBA—which is more than half of the league, even when including the expansion Golden State Valkyries.

The six teams missing head coaches are the Los Angeles Sparks, Sky, Dallas Wings, Atlanta Dream, Washington Mystics, and Sun. The Sun are the only team without a coach that finished last season with a winning record.

Front Office Sports explored the possible reasons for the mass head-coach firings across the league, which could be related to the league’s unprecedented growth and the money teams are expecting to receive from the $2.2 billion media-rights deal. Read more here.

The Rays still don’t know where they will play in 2025, but a significant step has been taken in efforts to start repairing Tropicana Field. 

The St. Petersburg city council approved roughly $6.5 million in public funding Thursday for work to be done to the ballpark that sustained major damage—including its roof collapsing—during Hurricane Milton.

A temporary drainage system will be created and the Tropicana Field’s electrical system, offices, concessions, and other exposed areas will be waterproofed, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The process, which is also intended to safeguard the facility against future storms, could last eight weeks.

It’s still expected that the Rays will need to open the next MLB season in late March at a temporary venue—with the team focused on Tampa-area options like their own spring training center in Port Charlotte, Fla., or potentially the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando. 

It remains possible that Tropicana Field could be declared unsalvageable during the cleanup process, which could save St. Petersburg some money in the short term but create major long-term issues for the Rays.

Looking to the Future

The Rays are dealing with the damage to Tropicana Field while they simultaneously try to move forward with the construction of a $1.3 billion ballpark in St. Petersburg set to open in 2028.

Public funding will account for $600 million of that project, but earlier this week, Pinellas County officials delayed a crucial vote to move the process forward. 

The county must issue $300 million in bonds to help the stadium financing by March 19, or the deal will be terminated, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal. The vote on those bonds has been pushed back to Nov. 19.