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Last Saturday, Chicago Sky guard DiJonai Carrington elbowed Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham in the face while attempting a chase-down block. Carrington was assessed a Flagrant 2 and ejected from the game.
After the Fever beat the Sky, Fever head coach Stephanie White commented on the controversial play.
“I mean, look, it was a hard foul,” White said at her postgame press conference. “I don’t think that DiJonai intentionally came out to get her across the neck like she did, but it did happen, and I thought it was the right call. But one of the things about [Carrington] is that she’s gonna play her butt off, man. She’s gonna compete. Nobody’s gonna go walking in for a layup. I don’t oppose the hard foul, but I also don’t think she intentionally went for the neck.”
Before returning home to Indiana to become the Fever’s head coach in November 2024, White was head coach of the Connecticut Sun for the 2023 and ’24 WNBA seasons, winning the 2023 WNBA Coach of the Year award. She coached Carrington on the Sun for those two years. So, if anyone not named DiJonai Carrington has the authority to speak on her playing style, it’s White.
But, as with all matters of the WNBA, people who otherwise don’t care about women’s basketball latched onto this and blew it out of proportion. Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith publicly called for White’s job. Beckwith wasn’t alone in criticizing White, as the likes of Linda Cohn and Jason Whitlock joined the chorus.
White has heard enough, and she used her pregame media availability before the Fever’s game against the New York Liberty on Tuesday night to unload on the disingenuous discourse around her and the WNBA as a whole.
“This isn’t necessarily for those people that are in this room; this is more for an online community that’s trying to create narratives that simply don’t exist,” White said. “Trying to create a fabrication or distortion of who I am, of what I’m about. Our players’ success, our players’ health and wellness, our players’ safety is always a top priority for me. One of the things I pride myself on is my relationships with players.”
“For those who have anything to say about the play in the last game, I didn’t see the play in real time,” White continued. “I went straight to a press conference. I thought the play got called right. Thankfully, Sophie is OK. Was it egregious? Absolutely. When you have a chance to watch that over and over and over on replay, you can see that. I didn’t have that in real time.”
White paused for a beat, and a reporter tried to squeeze a question in, but White would not be deterred from what she came there to say. White grew increasingly passionate, slamming the table and even quoting Michelle Obama.
“I take personally any suggestions that I don’t 100 percent always have my players’ back,” White said, with her voice escalating. “I ride 10 toes down all the time. All the time! They know that. It’s a shame that we can’t have an opportunity to talk about what great basketball they’re playing because they are f*cking playing.
“The reality is, with me, I will always lead with love. I will always lead with grace. I will always lead with humility, and I will always lead with integrity. It doesn’t mean I’ll always get it right. I’m also human.
“The hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that’s trying to hijack our league will not win. It won’t win. We are united, we are connected, [and] we will not be divided. Every day, these women put their ass on the line. Every day. When they go low, we go high. Love will win! Grace will win! Humility will win! And kindness will win! I stand by them. I will always stand by them. Everybody else can go to hell.”
Earlier this season, White came under fire when a sideline spat between White and Fever All-Star guard Caitlin Clark was caught on camera. Days later, Clark came to White’s defense.
“A lot of those things happen all the time, and I know there’s a camera on me, and that’s how it’s going to be,” Clark said in early June, per ESPN’s Kareem Copeland. “But there’s a lot of people out there in the media or on TV that they think they know a lot of things and they’re just blatantly wrong about a lot of things.”
“It’s just another example of what everybody, all of you, want to blow up and make something that is just lost and not in reality,” Clark added. “When I got hurt at the Connecticut game last year, I bawled in Steph’s arms. That’s somebody I will ride for for the rest of my life. People that just sit on their phones all day, they don’t see those moments.”
Shortly after White’s pregame statement on Tuesday, Fever president Kelly Krauskopf issued a statement of her own.
“Coach White has done a tremendous job leading the Fever and, for the second-consecutive season, has us in great position for a playoff push,” Krauskopf said, per ESPN’s Alexa Philippou. “She has kept our team focused and united, all while under the brightest spotlight our team and our league have ever experienced. She has the full support of leadership.”
The post Stephanie White delivers passionate message to critics: ‘Everybody else can go to hell’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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