INDIANAPOLIS – The youngest head coach in the WNBA is showing wisdom and maturity beyond her years.
Stephanie White, 38, took over the Indiana Fever this season with no previous experience as a head coach. She immediately installed a new, fast-paced offense. The upshot: Indiana is averaging 85 points in its last eight home games, all victories.
Need another example? Early this season, White watched her club struggle to a 3-6 getaway. She quickly identified defensive shortcomings and went to work on repairs. The result: Fever opponents have failed to reach 70 points in four of the past five games.
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White grew as her team grew. She began to flourish on the bench as her team blossomed on the floor.
Now an Indiana club that relies on balanced scoring, hard-nosed defense and attention to detail is the talk of the WNBA. Nobody is hotter. The Fever (17-9) have won six straight games overall and 14 of 17 since that 3-6 start.
And White, who spent five seasons as a Fever player and eight years as a WNBA assistant, is expected to be a solid candidate for league Coach of the Year honors.
“If she’s not, I think people are undervaluing what she’s done here,” said Kelly Krauskopf, the Fever’s president and general manager. “I think what she has done is a phenomenal job for a first-year pro coach with a lot of high expectations.”
If White goes on to win the media vote as the WNBA’s top coach, she would become the first since Michael Cooper of the Los Angeles Sparks in 2000 to capture the award as a rookie with no previous head-coaching experience. In the NBA, current Pacers President Larry Bird won Coach of the Year in his first season (1997-98) on the Indiana bench after never having previously served as a head coach.
What White is accomplishing at Bankers Life Fieldhouse has, in some ways, made a highly difficult task look uncomplicated. Expectations are typically big for the Fever, who have advanced to the playoffs in a WNBA-record 10 straight seasons. White is pushing her team to success with a roster that shows only three players with double-figure scoring averages, led by Tamika Catchings at 13.0.
White, a television commentator in the offseason, easily and affably handles her media chores as a coach. She mixes nicely with fans around town. And she inspires her players with her knowledge and thorough preparation.
“She’s the whole package,” Krauskopf said. “This job was really made for her.”
Fever guard Shenise Johnson echoes Krauskopf. Under White’s guidance, Johnson, acquired from San Antonio before the season, ranks as a candidate for Most Improved Player in the league. Johnson has become a consistent scorer (11.3), rebounder (5.0) and playmaker (2.3 assists) as White and her staff find various ways to utilize the talented guard.
“Steph’s wheels are always turning. She’s just so smart,” Johnson said. “That’s something I really admire about her.”
One of the first things White did was hand out notebooks to her players, in which they list five things they do well on the court each day. The notes are less about basketball skills and more about intangibles such as leadership and on-court communication.
“Intangible things win games,” White said. “I want our team to value those intangibles.”
White said she doesn’t focus on the WNBA standings – where her Fever, by the way, are one game behind first-place New York in the Eastern Conference. Instead, she concerns herself with making sure Indiana’s players demonstrate effort and energy. She stresses preparedness for all players, coaches and support staff.
“You look at our team on paper and maybe some people have overlooked us,” White said. “But what we’ve done is cultivate a culture that values 12 players, that values 18 staff members, that values the little things we do every day to put ourselves in position to improve.”
White sees a Fever squad that is “still in a growing phase.” What she also sees, however, is a team managing to keep any stretches of inconsistent play to “short periods.”
Ask White if she has improved as a head coach over the past three months and she responds quickly and emphatically: “No question.”
She points to her improved decision-making. She notes, too, that her play-calling abilities and recognition of lineup mismatches in games have improved.
Looking back, White said her emphasis on offensive changes early this season might have led to the defensive slip-ups that proved costly in the Fever’s 2015 start. If a reset button was available on that strategy, the Indiana coach might push it.
“But that would probably be the only thing,” said White, who prefers to learn from mistakes rather than be tormented by them. “If I didn’t have the hiccups, if I didn’t have the stumbling blocks, I might not be where I am right now.
“I have a long way to go, just like our team has a long way to go. … It’s a life-long learning process. I’m just continuing, like our team, to try to grow every day and try to get better every day.”