Report: Fever Eyeing Former WNBA Coach of the Year to Replace Christie Sides

The Indiana Fever shocked more than a few people on Sunday when they announced that head coach Christie Sides had been fired.

The 47-year-old led the Fever to a 20-20 record in her second season with the team, snapping the franchise’s seven-year playoff drought, but it wasn’t enough to save her job.

With WNBA Rookie of the Year winner Caitlin Clark having a rookie season for the record books and the Fever with one of the top young rosters in the league, it seems Indiana is opting to upgrade wherever possible.

According to Annie Costabile of the Chicago Sun-Times, 2023 WNBA Coach of the Year Stephanie White, who is currently under contract with the Connecticut Sun, is the reported favorite to replace Sides as Fever head coach.

“Firing Sides paves the way for Stephanie White’s return to Indiana,” Costabile wrote . “While nothing has been made official, multiple sources expect White, who’s still under contract with the Sun, to be the Fever’s next coach.

“…The Fever have always appeared to be the front-runner. Indiana can offer White proximity to family. The Fever job also comes with an opportunity to coach Clark, Aliyah Boston and potentially Kelsey Mitchell if she opts to re-sign in free agency.”

White to the Fever just makes too much sense.

The 47-year-old is an Indiana native who starred for the Purdue women’s basketball team in the late 1990s, leading the school to a national championship as a senior in 1999.

White was part of the Fever’s inaugural team in 2000, and she also spent two seasons as the team’s head coach from 2015-2016 and led Indiana to its second-ever WNBA Finals appearance in her first season as coach.

After returning to the WNBA after an unsuccessful five-year run as the coach at Vanderbilt, White led the Sun to a 55-25 record with back-to-back appearances in the semifinals over the last two years, winning COTY honors in her first season.

Adding a coach of White’s caliber likely boosts Indiana’s profile as a free-agent destination and presumably makes them a favorite to make a deep playoff run in 2025.